h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...well, I did.

Back when I was a young and innocent cub, I went to my American dentist for a checkup before venturing overseas. This excellent man, whose ancestors came from the Yiddish-speaking part of Romania, advised me, 'You've got wisdom teeth coming in. They'll be okay if they don't crowd your mouth.' Fatal remark.

I then emigrated to Germany, where, a year later, I was sitting in a chair having my impacted wisdom tooth yanked by an insane Münchner armed with a pair of pliers and - I regret to say, as he was of a certain age - ideas influenced by Darwin's regrettable cousin Francis Galton.

He broke the tooth (the dentist, not Francis Galton). Why will become apparent shortly. Holding out the offending pieces, he demanded: 'What was this doing in your mouth?'

In other words, I interpreted through the blinding pain, 'None of MY ancestors was sleeping around with other species.'

I had a fused molar.

Now, the only people I had ever heard of with fused molars were Neanderthals. I therefore assumed I had Neanderthal ancestor - and so did my dentist, who as I said, probably harboured Unfortunate Ideas. I, on the other hand, thought it was Cool.

Painful, but definitely cool.

Now, I'm always ahead of my time with such notions, and for 30 years people have been telling me I'm nuts. Okay, I am, but that doesn't mean we don't have Neanderthal genes. Some of us, at least.

Now take a look at this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100506/ap_on_sc/us_sci_neanderthal_genes;_ylt=AlLmkDKW_sy0MPzFPh3nmxgPLBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTJwM3Rscm40BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNTA2L3VzX3NjaV9uZWFuZGVydGhhbF9nZW5lcwRjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzIEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDeW91cmVhbmVhbmRl

Aha. Told you so!!!

Isaac Asimov once said, 'The nice thing about advances in scientific knowledge is that they make people stop saying, "There goes Asimov, the nut," and start saying, "There goes Asimov, the clear-eyed seeker of truth."'

Yeah. Like that. It's called vindication.

We should notice that so far, it looks like only Europeans and Asians are related to Neanderthals. And that somebody's already figured out that somebody, somewhere, will try to make a Big Deal out of that. Phooey. I've read William Golding's 'The Inheritors', and I believe those Neanderthals were lovely people I'm proud to be related to. Besides, I'm Scotch Irish. We're not proud.

Oh, and I love the Wash U prof's remark about how people now have something better to worry about than who was sleeping with whom in the Pleistocene.

That München dentist ruined more than my evening. The damage he did aggravated my TMJ (temporal mandibular joint syndrome), causing back pain, skeletal misalignment, etc, and is probably responsible for my going from 'hey, you have strong teeth' to 'Aieee!' (the favourite remark of my excellent Philly dentist, who came from around Bombay). I have crowns now. I blame bad dentistry.

But I don't blame the Neanderthals.

A documentary I saw a while back talked about the improving opinion of Neanderthals. Those scholars who are most in a position to know have a lot of respect for them. I would be proud to carry their genes. Not that I'll likely ever klnow whether I do or not, since I don't have any wisdom teeth to check.

What a painful experience. Ouch.

I wonder if this might have something to do with me seeing a very Neanderthal looking cashier? First time I saw him was some years ago, and he did look just like one, I swear - flat and broad nose, receeding chin (almost non-existing), low and short forehead and very heavy eyebrows.

And yet, he was working for Systembolaget
http://www.systembolaget.se/Applikationer/Knappar/InEnglish/
where all the staff are very knowledgeable when it comes to which wine goes with which food and also don't need a calculator to figure out how much change to give back if you pay cash.

But it felt so unreal, seeing him, the perfect illustration - and live - of a Neanderthal.

Maybe it's not just teeth but also looks that will pop up once in a while?

You know, it might be. I'll bet Neanderthals were not heavy drinkers...but who knows? They might have had good taste...

I know i repeat myself, but I am sure the neanderthals were a nice bunch - compared to modern people

present company not included, of course

On behalf of my putative Neanderthal ancestors, I thank you.

oops,

should have been:

present company *of modern people* not included, of course

Nah. I'm claiming those Neanderthals. I had the tooth to prove it, remember?

and you are right in doing so. i only question the quality of modern people. and only those who are not here

Quite right, too. Those who do not read h2g2 are obviously in need of civilising.

By the way, I was just checking something and found out one of my EG entries had been pinched wholesale and was reposted on Facebook. The nerve......

Seriously? Give us a link, and we'll disapprove it out of existance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDgOjJ9Wtk4


loved this when it came out

A lot of my classmates at my last school came from the next valley over, where the Neander River flows...

And did it rub off on you?

there's still a lot of Neanderthals over here

no disrespect to the true past species of course

At the bottom of this page:

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=100871544787&topic=10120

I'm not sure why they do this, but hey - it spreads the information.

I remember being excited when I saw the Neanderthal skull in Bonn. And then I visited Solingen...

I quite like the theory of how Homo sapiens overtook Neanderthals. According to that, Neanderthals had a olfactory sense many times better than Homo sapiens, and could hunt and find food much better. But H. sapiens started to keep dogs, which were even better at sniffing and snuffling, and more than made up for the disadvantage.

I guess that just proves that man's best friend is really the noble dog.

At least that person on FB links back to the original article - I wonder why he appears to be collecting writings on cannibalism?

This credit-crunch business was worse consequences than being a bit late with the rent, perhaps.