The Post Quiz: Ancestral Scandals - Answers
Created | Updated Apr 17, 2016
What's the weirdest thing our ancestors ever did? Well, they resulted in you…
Ancestral Scandals: Answers
Ancestors: we can't exactly revere these. What did they do?
- Back when they were Homo erectus, our ancestors started migrating from Africa. (It was a long trip to Brighton.)
- Our most recent common ancestor was a lady named Mitochondrial Eve, 120,000-150,000 years ago. Remember to send her a Mother's Day card.
- Scientists suspect Cro-Magnons sometimes married (okay, maybe they didn't have a licence) Neanderthals, at least in Europe and Asia.
- According to that great source of scientific information, the Daily Mirror, a fuzzy rhinoceros from Siberia may be the origin of the human belief in unicorns. (Take it up with the Mirror.)
- Back in the day, if your neighbour invited you to a flintknapping party, what should you probably bring along? A hammerstone. (You're making tools.)
- If your South American Pleistocene ancestors were hunting a Glyptodon, they needed a party. (The thing was about as big as a VW Bug.) What relative of the Glyptodon might you have run over on a road in Texas? An armadillo. (Drive more carefully next time.)
- Do you have relatives in Sussex? If so, they might enjoy this. 500,000 years ago, what might they have been doing if an elephant came along? Driving it over a cliff into a bog. Well, some scientists think so.
- What is unusual about Britain between 180,000 and 60,000 years ago? (No, the M1 wasn't closed.) Well, maybe it was: nobody lived there. There was an absence of humans, probably due to the terrible climate. (So, why is it populated today?)
- Were your Mesolithic British ancestors cannibals? Oh, yes. (Sorry.)
- Why did Craig Dent of Melbourne, Australia, travel to Cheddar in Somerset? To visit a distant relative's remains. Like a couple of other people in Cheddar, Craig Dent found out he was a cousin of Cheddar Man, the Mesolithic skeleton found in Gough's Cave. Er, Cheddar Man's death remains an unsolved case.
Stop and think about it: one way or another, we're all related. Those bones the researchers dig up? Those are the skeletons in our closets. So the next time you get annoyed at your fellow passengers on the train/bus/tube, stop and think: that's just Cousin Ernie acting up again. And grin. At least you don't have to go Glyptodon hunting with him.
