The Relation of Humans and Neanderthals, Essay Example

The theoretical continuity underlying the empirical evidence presented in articles such as Berger and Trinkhaus’ analysis of the traumatic lesions of Neanderthals and Green et al.’s draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome can be summarized in terms of a basic ambiguity concerning the precise nature of the relationship between Neanderthals and human beings. Namely, the traditional split between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals appears to be undermined by such evidence, as a close interaction between the two on both genetic and social levels becomes a more veracious hypothesis.

In the case of trauma wounds, the specific interpretation of injuries to Neanderthal skeletons as similar to those of North American Rodeo Athletes infers that Neanderthals were closely involved with such animals in terms of hunting or perhaps even primitive attempts at domestication. Accordingly, the centrality of the animal to Neanderthal life could be possibly correlated to the centrality of the animal to the life of humans, in particular, in terms of the crucial activity of hunting. Considering their shared living space in Western Europe and Eurasia, the shared exercise of hunting could have possibly lead to a close interaction between humans and Neanderthals, either in the form of competition or perhaps cooperation. This symmetry in the basic lifestyle of humans and Neanderthals thus suggests the necessity of their social encounters and some forms of communication. Accordingly, such new data implies that there must be a radical re-thinking of what exactly is the relationship between humans and Neanderthals, insofar as their shared modes of existence, alongside a shared habitat in Europe would inevitably lead to encounters and perhaps cross-cultural exchange. Whatever the various forms of such interaction may have taken, the centrality of ungulates to Neanderthal life underscores their social and cultural proximity to human beings.

Such an account is furthermore supported by the latest genetic research, in which drafts for the Neanderthal genome are being forwarded. The hypothesis that Neanderthals share genetic variants with humans in Eurasia, more so than those in Sub-Saharan Africa, suggests that a gene flow may have existed between human beings and Neanderthals. Although the authors underline the fact that there is no reciprocal gene flow in Neanderthals from modern humans, this could be attributed to the role of humans in this relationship as colonizers, as the study cites previous scientific data in which gene flow is not necessarily reciprocal when a group that expands into a new territory encounters the residents of this same territory.

On a deeper anthropological and philosophical level, the possibility of Neanderthal genes in the Eurasian populace would therefore affect a certain radicalization of the concept of the human being itself. The notion of the human would have to shift from a relatively static picture, rooted in the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens, to one that was open to close genetic relatives such as the Neanderthal. Accordingly, a certain ambiguity concerning identity opens up with the question of possible empirical evidence of human-Neanderthal gene flow.

Continuing advances in the acquisition of empirical evidence in archeological and genetic forms provokes anthropologists to re-think some of their conceptual categorizations. The evidence of social interaction and genetic flow between Eurasian humans and Neanderthals forces a new conceptualization of this period in human history. Of particular interest in this regard is the extent to which contact with Neanderthals may have influenced the subsequent development of Eurasian man. Furthermore, traditional conceptualizations of Neanderthals as inferior to human beings would need to be discarded. This opens the possibility of new constructions of narratives concerning what may have been a crucial relationship between Neanderthals and humans.