Last year geneticists discovered that most people have 1-4% Neanderthal DNA. Turns out that at least two distinct hominid species, Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals, dwelt in European forests together and interbred.
But of course you remember this story, it dominated news cycles due to the enormity of the findings and their compelling implications, right? C’mon! You remember, right?
Not so much.
Why so little fanfare? This is among the most fascinating scientific discoveries of our lifetime, with implications from cellular biology to anthropology. It’s astonishing to discover that we Homo Sapiens interbred with another completely different hominid species.
It also adds a new element to an age old drama, the child who falls in love outside of the tribe; “Guess Who’s Come Coming to Dinner” or “Romeo and Juliet” Paleolithic style.
Coming to a theatre near you:
“Forbidden Love: The Passion of Grall and Gogg.”
“Grall, you cannot marry that Neanderthal boy. I forbid it! Can’t you see that he’s not good enough for you? Sure, you love him now but what will the Sapiens say?! Think of your children -1/2 Sapien, ½ Neanderthal? – what kind of future will they have? And honey I’m sorry, but Gogg? Really? That protruding occipital ridge…I don’t know how you can even look at him, let alone…you know…”
“Father, I love Gogg. If you can’t accept that, we will run off to the Homo Habilus, where we’ll be accepted for who we are.”
So why hasn’t this Neanderthal/Sapien comingling enrapt us? Turns out white people have the most Neanderthal DNA and the only people without a trace of Neanderthal DNA are of African descent. That’s right. African’s represent “Sapien purity” while Europeans aren’t even all “human.” Yet another jagged little pill of irony for the Eurocentric mind to swallow.
So what happened? It appears that those Sapiens who left their Mother Africa for the “new world” of Europe encountered Neanderthals and made babies; then, somehow the Neanderthals died out (which begs the question: Is the Neanderthal story the first, and perhaps most profound genocide in all of hominid history?) Whatever the answer to that one, we know that despite their disappearance for roughly 30,000 years, Neanderthals are still 1-4% of us white people!
Let’s try this thought experiment: Imagine the findings were reversed and black people had 1-4% Neanderthal DNA, while white people were “Sapien pure.” Wouldn’t the story dominate cable news every night for a while? Might we see panel discussions between right wing pundits blowing the “blacks have Neanderthal DNA and we don’t? Makes sense to me…” dog whistles, while white liberal and black pundits push back that 1-4% of Neanderthal DNA in black people is of no consequence? Would the “The Bell Curve 2.0” have exploded on the NY Times bestseller list? Would the “black Neanderthal DNA” issue have become yet another nasty right wing rallying cry? Maybe “BNDNA” could have seeped into the 2016 Presidential campaign?
Clinton: “Donald says the presence of Neanderthal DNA in black people proves their inferiority and wants to prohibit African immigration—shame on him!”
Trump: “No one cares more for the blacks than I do, believe me, but BNDNA is a real thing, and people are saying we need to look into it.”
Sadly, we know these scenarios aren’t too far fetched. As it turned out, the story made page 6 in the science and tech section. Apparently, confounding assumptions both sides of the media hold – the right wittingly, the left less so – regarding the evolutionary leg up Caucasian’s are supposed to enjoy doesn’t seem to cut it as lead story material, even on slow news days.
Europeans have traveled and inexorably disrupted all habitable continents for 6 centuries. This is our present day context and legacy. No doubt, this century and centuries to come will see shifting geopolitical and racial tides of power, as they always do and European disruption does not mean European supremacy on anything but a military level. But like it or not, this has been the era of impact, influence, and dominance of the European Continent by any and all means.
It’s a fundamental human drive to explain our own history in the best light possible. Among white people in the US, narratives that cleanse our skins of our sins, and convert those sins to virtues (eg. Columbus Day, Thanksgiving) are just normal expressions of human nature. Indeed, to the victor goes the privilege of writing one’s own history. These histories inevitably and inaccurately affirm not just the victor’s dominance, but their righteousness.
And so I conclude this thought experiment in this way: no matter our political leanings or our moral compass, we are driven by forces we don’t recognize to confirm that which we think we know (aka. confirmation bias). In the case of our poor cousins, the Neanderthals, the task starts with an entirely racist, or “Speciesist” proposal: that Neanderthal DNA is “less than” Sapien DNA. Who’s says Neanderthal DNA isn’t superior to Sapien DNA? We Sapiens say, that’s who, because we wrote our own “glorious” history, but that doesn’t make it so.
By extension, this trial helps explain racism, or any “ism,” as we move Heaven and Earth to validate our “betterness.” We only evolve as we recognize the limits of our perceptions and impulses to fill in the unknown with content that makes us feel good while batting away those inconvenient truths, like Neanderthal DNA. And if you don’t think so, just ask Darwin or Copernicus whose discoveries were not only inconvenient, but deemed heretical. Now? They’re accepted quite freely (well, Copernicus at least). Similarly, the flawed narrative of today’s racism will march on before dissolving in the ever shifting geopolitical tides, and the higher truth that my race isn’t better than yours emerges with Copernican acceptance, no matter my inherited urge to prove otherwise. JS