The First Genocide

Whatever happened to all the Neanderthals? The question is asked again and again by those who study or even have just a passing interest in those who simultaneously preceded and took a different path than the ancestors of modern humans. The ideas that we desecnded from them directly or interbreeded with them are slowly being eroded by newer evidence, both archealogical and genetic, and slowly a grim truth is being accepted as to why their disappearance coincides with a territorial expansion of our ancestors that enveloped land once theirs. I wrote earlier about the recent book, "Before the Dawn" by Nicholas Wade, but some thoughts have been lingering with me regarding a particularly unnerving mid-portion of that book which dealt with some of man's darker behaviors, as well as some thoughts on the final fate of the Neanderthals.

The Neanderthals

The Neanderthals were very much like us, but also very different. Based on skeletonal remains that have been found, they were generally between five and five and a half feet tall, slightly shorter than average by today's standards, but a bit taller than the anatomically modern humans (or cro-magnon) living at the time. It is believed they had low, sloping foreheads, no chins -same as chimps today- and a good deal more muscle, weight, and strength than even we do today, despite their stature being lower than our own is now. Dressing an ancient, anatomically modern human in the clothing we have today would allow them to blend into a crowd, but doing so for a Neanderthal wouldn't keep them from drawing stares, or so the saying goes.

The Neanderthals used stone tools about the same as those of our ancestors up until about 50,000 years ago. These included axes, cleavers, and other cutting implements made of flaked stone, and probably a good deal other tools made of more perishable materials like wood, and animal hides which haven't survived into modern times. On the topic of perishability, they also almost certainly built shelters, but because of this quality, little remains and mostly they have been associated as being "cavemen" due to this type of place being the most common residence their settements have been found intact.

They were able to control fire, a big technological advantage of the ancient world unique only man and his close cousins. Also, some primitive works of art have been found in their dwellings, though it is open to debate as to whether they themselves were the creators of it or not. Like many tribes living in foraging or limited farming societies today, it is possible that much of what they made would not survive the ravages of time leaving us with limited information in this regard, to say nothing of the immaterial artifacts; their culture, language, and knowledge of the plants and animals on the land they inhabited. All of this we lack true evidence of and can only infer. In a similar way, stone-age tribes living today would not leave much behind to be analyzed.

In terms of other qualities that we generally associate with humans, they appear to have lived in small groups, stored up food as a safeguard against lean times (though not to the extent of the cro-magnons living at the time), buried their dead, and cared for their injured. The burials are inferred from what seem to be grave sites dug in the earth, in some cases with flowers or even jewelry that appear to have been placed there purposely. Their caring for their injured comes from skeletons showing very bad injuries that would've crippled or likely meant death for their victim had they been alone, but have instead healed over, implying that other, healthy members took care of them while incapacitated.

One of the most important unknowns is what type of linguistic ability they had. Much conjecture has been made based on what skeletal remains have been found. Most believe their ability to make sounds would have been greater than that of modern day primates, but not of the same level as our own, though Neanderthal bones for specifically the purpose of creating many sounds have been discovered, and again new genetic tests have shown they possess some of the same genes for language that we do. If they had lacked even the ability to use a language as complex as our own, it most certainly would've been a detriment towards the interbreeding of the two species, being a large obstacle to effective communication between two groups who would've almost certainly already had different languages to begin with.

Judging from where their remains have been found, they lived mostly in Europe but also in parts of the middle east, Isreal and the like. The middle east sites even suggest Neanderthal populations "moving in" after earlier settlements of cro-magnon, which in turn hints at early conflicts between the two ending with the retreat and displacement of the cro-magnons back into northern Africa by about 100,000 years ago.

The Cro-magnons

Recent genetic testing has led many to believe that by about 50,000 years ago, the early forerunners of modern man, the cro-magnon, appear to have whithered to mere 5,000. From this small number, it seems all humans today emerged. That those alive today are desended from Neanderthals or a hybrid mixing of them and cro-magnon has also been more or less put to rest by genetic tests on Neanderthal DNA extracted from old samples revealing a distinctly different genetic signature. If Neanderthal and cro-magnon mixed at all, it certainly wasn't widespread.

Because they were using roughly the same set of tools, techniques, and technologies as the Neanderthals, and because they were smaller in size and strength, it appears they were at the time being boxed in by the Neaderthals, unable to get out of Africa. When they finally escaped Africa, their likely point of exit was the Gate of Grief in the southern part of the Red Sea which would've had a much lower water level at that time, thus allowing them a release from Africa without having to go through territory occupied by the Neanderthals.

This wandering of people into unknown land was no expedition out looking for adventure, but rather a slow expansion with people striking further into the unknown only as they managed to safely populate a new area not far away from land they already knew. After crossing the Gate of Grief, they appear to have spread along the southern part of the Arabian penninsula until they reached India, at which point different groups would've split ways, some going into Asia, some south into the areas of modern day Indonesia and Australia which were connected largely by a landbridge at the time, and some going back northwest towards Europe, once more re-igniting the the conflict with the Neanderthals.

If there's one thing which can be proven without much doubt, it's that Neanderthals did very little innovating to the set of technologies they had. Progress and improvement were almost non-existent. The cro-magnon, by contrast, began making better tools, including barbed arrowheads, fishhooks (implying advancing fishing techniques), sewing needles, and art that was unequivocally their own. Most of the Neanderthals would have had none of these things.

In addition to this, the cro-magnon were better able to adapt and exploit their environments, (as mentioned before) stored more food for lean seasons, and lived together in generally larger groups than did the Neanderthals. The latter of these is of particular importance, because it would now mean that the groups of cro-magnons would outnumber the Neanderthals they encountered.

Warfare on a "small and primitive" scale

In pondering how conflict between the two species went down, it's instructive to look for a second at how the so called "primitive" societies of today do so. Hunter gatherer groups such as the !Kung San of Africa, the Dani of New Guinea, and low-stage gardeners such as the Yanomamo who live in the jungles of South America all practice nearly constant warfare. Though in the past, the concept of the "noble savage" who lives at peace with himself, with nature, and with other tribes similar to his own was generally accepted, a more realistic portrait of such peoples has recently emerged. Tribal peoples can be very brutal, and some very often engage in warfare.

While what occurred between the cro-magnon and Neanderthals would've been a conflict between two different species, it strikes me that the territorial qualities of different animals tends to come when they have more to fear from their own kind than of others. In addition to the tribal societies that have remained into modern times, there is one other animal that practices a very similar style of warfare to tribal men; the chimpanzee.

Like the anthropologists who first observed many of the tribal societies after their first-contacts in the 20th century, those who first observed chimps thought them to be peaceful, unassuming, and non-violent. These preconceptions were shattered by the research of Jane Goodall who witnessed and recorded some chilling altercations between rival bands of chimps.

Though they often stick to their own territory, chimps occassionally will band together and move silently into that of opposing camps. Their behavior is described as being strange while they do it, different than normal, tense, nervous, very alert. They spend a lot of time listening for calls from individuals of the rival band, sniff around a lot, and otherwise pay very close attention for anything that might lead them to isolated members of the opposing camp. They generally only attack if they're able to find opponents whom they out-number by about three to one or more (two to hold down the opponent, one to bite, hit, smack, and otherwise beat as closely to death as possible before retreating).

Though many animals fight with one another, chimps and humans seem to be the only ones who have decided that it's smarter to annihilate your opponent rather than risk their recovery and retaliation, and consequently adopt this as a strategy. Tribal humans engage in warfare similar to chimps. They engage in raids into enemy territory, though the manner in which they do so certainly involves more organization. They generally do so at night, often times right before dawn perhaps so their opponents will not be able to retaliate while it still is dark. The goal in the end is roughly the same, kill only a few of the enemy and then escape before they can mount a counter attack. While tribal people do occassionally fight in the open at scheduled times, and some have pointed out that fighting can at times seem more like a sport which can get called off due to rain, the overall facts that they fight regularly, and fight specifically to kill, mean that even though the casualties might be low in given encounters, they add up. The end result is devastating. In some tribes, warfare accounts for 30% of all deaths in their population. Imagine putting numbers like that to our own civilizations of millions and billions and just how destructive constant and deadly such warfare is to peoples of such small numbers comes much more clearly into focus.

The First Genocide

So what exactly was it like when the cro-magnons met the Neanderthal in a conflict that ended with the latter's death? We'll never know for certain, but while it's not impossible that tribes of the time could've rallied others to fight with them against outside aggressors, it also isn't entirely likely either. Like modern day tribes who engage in warfare, it probably often took the form of silent raids conducted in the dark. It was most likely fought between primarily those on the furthest outposts of their respective groups.

In addition to the violent way some tribal groups resolve problems amongst themselves and rival groups, another common way to do so is to simply get up and leave, taking those along who want to go with you. As larger groups would've had more disputes, and the land and subsequent ability to live on it at the time could only sustain so many, people of given tribes probably had to split off and strike into the unknown whenever a group became too large and unmanageable, and the land no longer able to sustain such a large number. "Pioneers" so to speak, who were living on the fringes may not have been able to retreat back without facing hostility from their own kind. The first Neanderthals to encounter cro-magnon settlers might likely have been living in the same kind of situation.

Imagine going into unexplored territory only to discover that a group of Neanderthals is already living there. Afraid to go forward, but unable to go back because behind you, those of your own kind are a more formidable foe. Cro-magnons did in the end have better weapons and higher numbers. All in all, the conflict was probably very one-sided, just as is almost every conflict documented when one group of people which has superior numbers and technology encounters another group whose land they want. One thing it wasn't, was rapid. The process took about 15,000 years with the end result being no more Neanderthals in Europe only by 34,000 years ago. Considering how long it took europeans to completely spread into Australia and North America, 15,000 years is glacial-speed.

The size and strength of the Neanderthals served them well against the ancestors of modern man for quite some time, but in the end cro-magnon persisted. In addition to higher intelligence, and better technology, cro-magnon was able to out-live and out-breed the Neanderthal. That cro-magnon could live to the age of 60 years compared to Neanderthal's 40, meant a lot more accumulated knowledge to serve their kind. The Neanderthal's greater size in the end meant it required more food to survive when compared to cro-magnon who could subsist on less.

* * *

I remember a friend telling me once that he thought some Neanderthals might've managed to eck it out much longer, that some even made it to the middle ages, and that stories of beast-men and grendels killed by Beowulf weren't just fantastical tales, but might simply have been exaggerated ones of creatures that were real but whom they couldn't understand. While it's interesting, given the dates we know for certain, this doesn't seem too likely, and surviving the onslaught of primitive man only to be killed by the steel of medeval Europe doesn't sound too appetizing either. Another group of hominids representing a different branch from cro-magnon and Neanderthal managed to live safely in the remote isolation of an island called Flores in Indonesia up until about 13,000. Considering that this group only managed to survive so long by being far removed from our ancestors, some of whom were just beginning to domesticate crops and create agriculture at that time, and that Neanderthals in general were unable to even withstand people without this advancement, makes it seem a bit far-fetched to think they made it to the middle ages.

Depending in how human one considers them to be, the fate of the Neanderthals could very well be considered the first genocide, the intentional destruction of an entire species. Humankind destroyed its closest relatives long before we ever existed. In defense of ancient man, he probably did so out of some degree of survival, and perhaps lacked the ability or foresight to empathize with an intelligence such as the Neanderthals, however similar it was to his own. As for the Neanderthals, I'm sometimes left wondering how close to us they actually were. They almost certainly were aware of themselves and their existence, but I wonder if they knew what was happening to them as it did. Did they realize they were dying, and eventually would cease to exist? In another way, what happened to them represents a very grim portent of how human history would play out again and again as societies and civilizations would exterminate each other for future millenia to come.

Drunken Warrior Poet

Drunken Warrior Poet

To learn about life through struggles and fights,
blinding revelations from over-medication
the mad ecstasy of chaos and battle
life's Gordian Knot elegantly unravelled

Brain full of bong resin and barely hops
and answers to life found in the bottoms of cups
mind being forged by the all-seering blaze
of unending nights spent in unending raves

I see the world crystal through five times distilled
drunken comprehension clarity unfiltered.
If life is drug then I'm drunk all the time
quick write down before I regain my mind.

Till the thoughts bleed straight to my pen from the head
Till my thoughts lay spilt out on the paper instead
Till it's all flowed out stream of consciousness
Till the voice floating round in my mind abets

Mad with Knowledge...

It's often been said that ignorance is bliss, but if this is true, does that mean knowledge is pain? If one were to follow things through to their natural conclusion, wouldn't knowledge then be corrosive to our happiness? It's certainly been the subject of many jokes, that those who don't try to set their sights any higher, suffice by aiming low, hit their targets more often, and can find themselves entertained by things so simple that others regard it as absolute nonsense. Isn't it the simple things in life after all that give us the most satisfaction? Sometimes by learning more and more, the only thing we come to really know is just how screwed up everything is. Could we really be any better off in the dark?

A Nostalgia of Youth and Past Alike

I can't help but think that the conception of the unintelligent being more content than others comes in part from an idea that children are the least educated, and at the same time the least burdened. As the years pile their knowledge upon us, the weight of it all begins to slowly crush many of our dreams, and with it usually, our gentle and childish spirit. Of course this analogy can only be taken so far because of the fact that someone out there has to take care of the child, and consequently, take responsibilty. We can't return to our childhood ways of thinking, not simply because we can't just forget or unlearn the things and push the difficult parts out, but also because we've taken on responsibilities that cannot be pushed back onto our parents or someone else. There is, however, another major defect to this way of thinking lying beneath it all: we often continue to look back at our childhoods with an idealized perfection that goes beyond a simple longing or nostalgia.

While we generally think of our youth as being the best part of our lives it isn't always simply because we were free of obligation and responsibilty. We have a habit of sanitizing our own pasts within our memories if for no other reason than to make the future bearable. Even thinking back a short period ago in one's life provides an interesting example. Thinking for only a moment where were you just six months or one year ago, generally a very clean, sterile version of events springs to mind. Often we remember the things that made us happy first, but once you really begin to question how you felt while you went about your everyday life, the full picture comes to focus. It's easier to remember the good times you had throughout the years, laughing with friends, rather than the times you spent crying alone in your own room.

How often do parents tell their children that things were so much better when they were young? That things have changed and it's mostly been for the worse, that even the things which make our lives easier have robbed us of the building of character which those difficulties provide. It's nothing new that members of the older generation will complain about how the young lack responsibility, motivation, and morality. About how they're just different, really.

In considering the generational divide, I've felt for some time that the young and old feel angry at the world for entirely different reasons. The young (especially teenagers) tend to be upset because they want the freedoms and other advantages of being treated as adults, but the world still sees them as children. They often rebel and as they age they change the world wanting to make it different than the one they feel held them down as they grew up. The old, on the other hand, tend to be upset because they view the world as having changed and that they are no longer the ones harnessing that change, it's all been taken from them, life's passing them by, and now it's all changing so fast they can't keep up. Sometimes I wonder if what the aged are really complaining about when they do it, is just being old themselves, and that what made things so much better in the past they remember, is that they were young when it happened.

The past was not sparkling and perfect in anyone's life, but we all look back on our own with nostalgia, even though there were of course problems we all had growing up, as well as struggles unique to each generation. When you apply this idea of sanitizing one's past, you begin to see examples of it extend even further to whole periods of time. The old sitcoms from the 50's present a very idealized version of the era they portray (the movie Pleasantville did an excellent job of demonstrating and deconstructing this point), and if you apply this concept even further, so too is many conservative americans' view of Victorian America, and many americans' view in general of the founding fathers and colonial era. In the U.S. we often have a habit of putting the ancient Greeks on a pedestal as if they were the forerunners of our democracy so to speak. The ancient Greeks themselves believed they had descended from an even greater culture that preceded their own, which in turn believed the same thing. In his book "The Third Chimpanzee", Jared Diamond dubbed this phenomenon quite appropriately as, "The Golden Age that never was".

Truth, Lies, Reality

I've understood for quite some time that the past was not the perfect, idyllic vision I once held of it, and yet the question which now confronts me is: Has any of this made me any happier? Doesn't life keep on kicking you when you're down anyways, and can you really blame a person for wanting to escape reality when everything is just so fucked up? The people who break the rules and cheat tend to get their way, the people who are honorable get screwed. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, those with the most will always be on top and never stop wanting more. I've sometimes wondered if perhaps all that's actually happened by realizing something like the concept behind our nostalgia of the past, is that I've robbed myself of what is a natural defense for us to duck into the bliss of ignorance. There are certain things we'd rather not know, aren't there also some things we're just better off not knowing?

When the truth feels unbearable, many of us resort to telling lies to spare others what we feel will just hurt or burden them. The so-called "white lies" we tell others, because we're trying to be merciful and not malicious. When everything is wrong with your life and you're sad and hurt beyond words, and then pass someone in the hall at work who asks you how you're doing and you simply reply, "Fine" you're already doing this starting to do this. When you believe another person's similar reply even though there is clearly something wrong, you're accepting the relief that comes without probing further. We all have our own problems we have to deal with in our own way, but some problems belong to us all and we simply believe things that cannot be true as means of escape.

The ignorant are not immune to misfortune, even children find themselves unhappy and reduced to tears, and even people who avoid the harsher truths of life have to deal with some sorts of hardship when it come right down to it. Accidents, injuries, sickness, taxes, arguments with other people, rotten luck, life. These things are everyone's problems and they happen to the ignorant as well as the wise, the ignorant just don't understand how and why and are left more confused than others. We can choose the comfort of believing lies or we can confront the pain of the awful truth. White lies may ease our discomfort for as long as we can believe them, but therein lies the risk not only of learning the painful truth, but also the added agony of discovering you've been lied to. Lies may indeed be necessary, but the advantages they hold are illusion, the advantages the truth holds are of reality.

What we are learning now

There is one final implication of knowledge I'd like to to address, an idea that has been lingering in my head for the past few days. It pertains to some of the possible dangers of knowledge. While the whole argument of "knowledge is power" and "power corrupts" could be easily linked and fuel much more discussion, I don't want to dwell too much on that for what I had in mind has also to do with what we are (and aren't) learning on the whole today.

The term "specialization", when used in an evolutionary sense, refers to certain species becoming so specifically adapted to one particular aspect of their environment that they often end up becoming dependent on it. Pandas and koalas, for example, have developed very specialized digestive systems for bamboo and eucalyptus respectively, and both species are now at a point where neither can live without their particular source of food. Specialization is generally viewed as a disadvantage in an evolutionary sense because in addition to the multitude of other things that can kill off a species (i.e. predators, natural disasters, etc...) a simple thing that merely threatens what they are dependent on (a famine or disease affecting bamboo or eucalyptus for the case of pandas and koalas) has the potential to devastate their population and the risk of extinction is therefore much higher. Humans, with our ability to eat many types of plants as well as meat and survive in hot as well as cold climates are considered to be very generalized (or unspecialized), and hold an advantage by being able to change food sources when one runs out or move to a new area if one becomes unstable.

I watched "Gorillas in the Mist" a short while ago, became interested in the basis of the events and poked around Wikipedia until I ended up reading about Louis Leakey, a famous archaeologist, and important figure in the field of human evolution. He helped set up and guide the initial placement of Dian Fossey, as well as Jane Goodall, into positions where they'd observe primates in a natural setting. One quote of his that I read, in particular, has stuck with me for the past few days:

"We know from the study of evolution that, again and again, various branches of animal stock have become over-specialized, and that over-specialization has led to their extinction. Present-day Homo sapiens is in many physical respects still very unspecialized− ... But in one thing man, as we know him today, is over-specialized. His brain power is very over-specialized compared to the rest of his physical make-up, and it may well be that this over-specialization will lead, just as surely, to his extinction. ... if we are to control our future, we must first understand the past better."

-From L.S.B. Leakey, Adam's Ancestors, Fourth Edition, final page.

I've been thinking to myself recently of just what could possibly cause humankind's noticeably high brain power to be any kind of a detriment, let alone one which could lead to his downfall. It's hard to believe it could have any negative potential when considering all the accomplishments we now enjoy that are based upon it, things such as technology, logic, increased food production, science, transportation, communication, etc...

When I look to the future, it's difficult not to be excited by the seemingly limitless potential of humankind. Maybe I'm just getting older, but recently I've also been left with a sense of unease at times at just how uncertain it all is. I heard recently that the most in-demand jobs of today, didn't even exist 10 years ago, and that most of the students of today are basically going to school to prepare for jobs that don't yet exist, to fix problems we don't even know about yet.

Given our propensity to kill one another, it could be said that knowledge has indeed become a very dangerous thing. We are now far more efficient at doing so than ever before, nuclear weapons alone could destroy the planet many times over. It's no exaggeration to say that society stands balanced on a razor's edge and could tip over at any time. Robert E. Howard once observed coldly through one of his characters that: "Barbarism is the natural state of mankind, Civilization is unnatural, a whim of circumstances." It's difficult not to be pessimistic when littered throughout history are examples of mankind's savage nature to kill others. Society as we know it could fall. We could turn on one another, or we could create the means for our destruction by tampering too much with mother nature. In either event, many of us could die very suddenly.

But what of the aftermath should the apocalypse ever come? The skills it would take to survive (hunting, farming, other ways of acquiring food and building shelter), aren't too widespread within the common people of today, and such an event would certainly take most of us completely by surprise. In today's society nearly all centers around the sea of information. Those who can navigate it successfully thrive, those who can swim it survive, those who cannot sink to the bottom. The fact that we now all seem to be learning things for jobs and problems which might not even yet exist might just be another way of saying we lack the skills to survive in the following turmoil of a cataclysm. I'm not saying that our priorities aren't straight, but our knowledge could very well prove to not only be the proximate source of our own extermination, but the final nail in the coffin in the form of our own unpreparedness.

The stance of the cautious optimist really seems best. We cannot negatively dwell only on the harsher aspects of the past and hope to still remain optimistic and boldly move into the future. To do so is to remain in darkness. But the mixed consequences of knowledge should not be underestimated as well. Knowledge does have the capability to do us harm as well as enlighten and improve. It strikes me that in many ways, we do fear certain types of knowledge; we fear to know more about the things and people we find despicable, even though such things can sometimes be helpful. It makes sense to some degree, why would any decent person want to understand the mind of a psychopath unless we wanted to try and stop them? By learning of things we hate or fear we become afraid that we'll grow to be more like that which we study. It amazes and frightens us that while in the beginning we can't help but turn away, after a while we can't stop looking.

"I was just guessin’, At numbers and figures, Pullin’ the puzzles apart
Questions of science, Science and progress, Do not speak as loud as my heart"

- Coldplay, The Scientist

"Write page after page of analysis
Looking for the final score
We're no closer than we were before"

- Keane, Perfect Symmetry

Looking at the way our artists view things I sometimes wonder if they represent the caution and skepticism present in us all everytime a new discovery is made. Sometimes I feel like the words of our poets and singers simply tear away at those of our great thinkers and inventors. As if to say the mind of humankind will never be a match for our hearts, that despite all our realizations we can't conquer misery or hardship, that for all of our knowledge it in the end brings us no happiness.