I saw an interesting PBS programme over the weekend about Neanderthals, which was appropriately entitled Neanderthals.

Among other things, I learned that the word “Neanderthal” now contains a silent “h”, the programme even going as far as to omit the “h” from select graphics and captions entirely (but not all of them, how curious..). They also spent time on how they now know that Neanderthals were conscious of themselves as being more “important” than other animals such as rabbits and deer, due to the fact that they actually honored their dead, burying them with items of importance. In addition, they went into all sorts of aspects of Neanderthal life, including how they were eradicated by Homo Erectus — which you might recognize as the ancesters of modern humans.

During the descriptions of the physical attributes of Neanderthal man, I learned quite a bit about myself. See, Neanderthals had prominant noses with almost nonexistent chins, walked not quite upright (they walked with a “stoop”) and had longer arms and legs than Homo Erectus. What I find interesting is that this description describes me extremely accurately. That’s how I would describe myself, to a “T” (whatever the hell that means), and it is convincing enough of a description that many aspects of my life and personality were suddenly a bit clearer.

I’m now pretty sure that I actually decended more from Neanderthals than Homo Erectus, which would easily explain why I don’t like people, especially crowds of them. Seeing a large crowd of Homo Erectus decendants has always evoked a fight-or-flight response from me, which I always found strange, yet now completely and utterly makes sense to me. I’m guessing that this is an instinctual residue, leftover from the time when Homo Erectus (nearly) eradicated my entire people. In addition, I’ve always found myself not caring a whole hill of beans what other people accept as “normal”, and have opted to “go my own way” rather than to just go ahead and assimilate myself into an inexplicably foreign-seeming society. Turns out that it is actually foreign afterall.

All these years I’ve always been afraid at the back of my mind that you fuckers were going to kill me, which led me to think that I might be crazy. Turns out the thought is warranted, and that I’m not crazy after all.

I must say, it’s quite a relief.

Defined tags for this entry: documentaries, neanderthals, tv