November 27, 2024 • 41 mins
Did you know November 9 is National Neanderthal Appreciation Day? Reivist this episode where Mo welcomes his friend Michael Ian Black – comedian, author, podcaster, and, as it turns out, Neanderthal (we’ll explain). Mo talks to Michael and the world’s leading researchers about why our extinct human cousins Neanderthals have gotten such a bad rap for so many many years, and how we’re learning more about how close we really were. Oh, Mo also talks to the guy who played Cha-ka on the 70s kids show Land of the Lost.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
During the earliest days of this millennium, I took part
in the Kind of History series, an ambitious survey that
explored milestones in American culture decade by decade. Of course
I'm talking about and after. I loved the eighties there
(00:26):
was and really who could forget? What made Dynasty wick
was the campfights. Yeah, he went from John Cougar to
John Cougar Mellencamp and I thought, did he get married?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
John Travolta's asked Urban Cowboy is that there should be
a shrine built too.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It was a classy show featuring a panoply of commentators,
and I was one of them, pondering complex topics like
nineteen eighties hospit dramas.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Saying elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
It was an hour long drama. It starred Mark Harman
as doctor Bobby Caldwell. Comedian and actor Michael Ian Black
was another contributor.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I thought, if anything, the title That's Incredible was an
understatement of how incredible the things on That's Incredible were.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
We didn't really know each other back then, but I
distinctly remember his take on the nineteen eighty one Neanderthal
epic Quest for Fire. While most of us were obsessed
with the film's nudity. Michael took the high road.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I was really looking at it more from an anthropological
point of view than to see Raydon Jones.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Tataz And it's that prehistory that's our subject to this episode.
Since Quest for Fire, we've learned some stunning truths about Neanderthals,
and I knew who. I wanted to discuss this topic
with my friend Michael ian Black back when we were
(01:58):
loving the eighties. Neither of us knew just how connected
he is to our human cousins of four thousand decades ago.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
If they had told me only how much Neanderthal I am,
I would have paid twice the amount for the test.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
I'm Morocca. And this is mobituaries, This mobid Neanderthals circa
forty thousand years ago. Death of a human species. Okay, first,
(02:34):
let's take care of some basics. The name Neanderthal comes
from the neander Valley in Germany, where one of the
first Neanderthal skulls was found in eighteen fifty six. At
the time, the fossil was misidentified as the skull of
a Cossack soldier from the Napoleonic Wars. They were only
off by a few tens of thousands of years now.
(02:54):
Neanderthals were also human, but a separate species Homo sapiens.
That's us and Neanderthals did share a common ancestor over
half a million years ago. Homo sapiens would go on
to flourish in Africa, while Neanderthals roamed across Europe and Asia,
adapting to a colder, harsher climate. Eventually the two species
(03:15):
did meet up. Then, about thirty to forty thousand years ago,
Neanderthals disappeared without a trace, or so we thought, which
brings me to my guest, Michael Ian Black. So, Michael
Ian Black, thank you so much for joining me for
this whole episode.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Let's get the promotion out of the way first, because
it's deserved. Your podcast, How to Be Amazing is amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yes, you can be on it, mo, Yes, that's where
I was going.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
So years ago I interviewed you about your one of
your books, Naval Gazing, and in it you talked about
genetic testing and why did you go about investigating your
genetic makeup?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I think the same reason most people do, just curiosity.
I just wanted to know genetically speaking who I am.
I had it in my head that I must be
at least a pastiche of things, some kind of milange.
I was hoping to find some African American, some Native American,
(04:21):
but the results were so disappointingly kind of exactly what
I had been led to believe, which is that I
am a one hundred percent Ashkanazi Jew.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I do think the food is better than Sephardic food.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Delicious, delicious if you just take the gefilter fish out
of that which I have always associated and will always
associate with just jellied cat turns.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
But you say you found out you were one hundred
percent Ashkanazi Jew, But that's not quite right.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Well, it is in terms of ethicity, But there was
also a which I didn't know till I got it
back from the company, that says it will also tell
you your Neanderthal percentages. If they had told me only
how much Neanderthal I am, I would have paid twice
(05:15):
the amount for the test, because for some reason, that
just really captured my imagination to think, oh, I may
be part of an entirely different species. That was thrilling
to me. And I didn't know that they had developed
the test, and I found out that I am two
point nine percent Neanderthal, which is greater than the norm.
(05:37):
The average is a two point seven percent.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Okay, that's a significant difference.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I mean, I can't tell you how delighted I was
to hear this, because your listeners can't see me, but
you can probably tell by the way I speak and
the timber of my voice that I am not the
most masculine of fellows.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
But I.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Mean, I mean, I'm tolerant, but to a point.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
But just the popular image of the Neanderthal as a
lumbering brute, as this strong survivor out on the steps
in planes just thrilled me to no end. And so
I was delighted. And I told my wife that I
am above averagely Neanderthal, and she said, that's why you
(06:26):
look like that, and she did not mean it as
a compliment.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
And let me just say that Martha is highly evolved.
She's basically Daryl Hannah and Clana the cave bear. I mean,
a highly evalved, leggy blonde.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yes she is.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
But wait, wait, hold on. When you describe Neanderthals as
masculine lumbering brutes, you're making certain assumptions and we'll dispel
some of these in this episode. For instance, how do
we know there weren't cultured episcene Neanderthals.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well, I think we do know, now you are doing
the research, and I'm just speaking off the top of
my head. Now they were kindessurs of fine wine. Is
my understanding. They did puppet shows.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Oh, Michael, we've got some work to do. Think of
me as your Henry Lewis Gates and this is finding
your roots, or as Lisa Caudreaux and this is who
do you think you are? I think that's her show.
I want you to know that your Neanderthal ancestors were
pretty darn special and not as different from us normal
people as you may think. So how did they get
such a bad rap? Let's find out. I grew up
(07:34):
with so many classic TV shows and films about Neanderthals
and cavemen, and they pretty much all got it wrong.
In nineteen eighty one, there was the aforementioned Quest for Fire.
The characters basically just plump through the whole movie, except
when one of them gets beamed in the head by
a rock and then everyone laughs. That same year, moviegoers
(08:02):
were subjected to the Ringo Star vehicle caveman Bobo Bobo.
During the course of the movie, a bunch of bumbling
cavemen discover fire, how to light farts on fire, and
jam bands and who could forget the mel blank voiced
(08:26):
cartoon character. But as far as portrayals of the primordial
go the show that had the biggest impact on me
was Land of the Lost. The theme song told the
story of the series. It's about a family on a
(08:47):
river rafting trip. During the ride, they go down a
magical waterfall and enter a universe filled with dinosaurs and
cave creatures.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Hi, I'm Phil Paley and I played Chaka on the
seventies show Land of the Lost.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
You were only nine years old when he got this role.
Tell us about the character.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Chaka was the youngest of the Pakuni clan. What do
you think he is.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I'm kind of a Cayman, a monkey or what Chakkaka.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I wore a prosthetic head piece, so it had a
very prominent brow and forehead, so it did kind of
look neanderthal ish.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
I guess back when I watched the show, I kind
of assumed Chaka was a Neanderthal, But looking back at
the clips now he seems more monkey boy free all over,
except for his face.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
The suit was made out of like nylon pantihose material
with a real human hair hands sewn into it, so
it made it kind of itchy.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Luckily, there are some people who know the difference between
Saturday morning science fiction and real science.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
Anything that depicts Neanderthals as basically bad hair, that's what
I laugh about.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Professor John Hawks from the University of Wisconsin at eau
Claire is one of the world's leading experts on Neanderthals.
Why have Neanderthals had such a bad reputation.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
The Neanderthals are a group that doesn't have an advocacy.
They don't have a lobby. You know, there's there's not
Neanderthal representatives calling their congressmen and so as a consequence,
if you thought something bad about the past, you know,
they were a convenient group because they weren't going to complain.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
It's so easy to use Geico dot com. A caveman
could do it.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
What.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Oh no, I'm not cool.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
I did not know you were there.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
The Neanderthals in those Geico commercials might be funny, but
make no mistake, we're laughing at them. So how did
this stereotyping of me Anderthals as a brutish, howling and
stupid get started. John Hawkes says it may have begun
with a nineteenth century German biologist named Ernst Heckel, who
(11:12):
attempted to map a genealogical tree of all living things.
When he came to early versions of us, he had
no fossils to study. It was pretty much just guesswork.
He chose a rather insulting classification.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
The name that he had for the predecessor of humans
that would be the Neanderthals basically was Homo's stupidness.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yes, Homo's stupidness, But it was the French who really
gave Neanderthals a bad name. In nineteen oh eight, a
nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton was found in a cave in
the town of La Chapelle au Saine. Paleontologist Marcel Bull
analyzed the remains of this individual and made sweeping and
(11:54):
hugely influential assumptions about the entire species.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
The image that came out of his work was hairy
and pretty ape like, with displayed toes and a slouching,
hunched posture.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Kate Wong is a writer for Scientific American, And what.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Researchers later determined was that this was an older individual,
this Neanderthal, who had suffered from severe arthritis. So all
of the sort of features that led Bull to assume
that the species had these slouched, stooped traits were actually
the result of disease.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
That is really hilarious to me, isn't it wild? And
I've wondered about that before, Like, when you find an
individual species of something, what if you're finding a weird
member of that species and it turns out that's exactly
what happened with the Neanderthals.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Totally an agreement of fascinating and hilarious. But hold on,
there's more. The old Man of La Chappelle, as he
came to be known, became the public's picture of neanders
for generations.
Speaker 7 (13:02):
They were the archetypal cave people, and that image, unfortunate,
has stuck with the Neanderthals over one hundred years later.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Professor Chris Stringer, the research leader at the Natural History
Museum in London, tells me part of the problem was
that in the early twentieth century we didn't understand how
evolution worked.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
There was this rather simplistic idea that they would be
missing links to be found in the story of human evolution.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
And it was because we were so fixated on the
idea of a missing link that we typecast Neanderthals into
the role of a half ape, half human caveman lah
atuk lor. But thanks to the rapid advancement and the
study of archaic humans, the image of the Neanderthal is
(13:48):
finally changing. To be sure, Neanderthals were different from us
in appearance. The pronounced brow ridge and sloping forehead in
those Geico commercials weren't tramped up by making up artists.
Speaker 7 (14:01):
So our brain case shape is rather globular, sometimes described
as like a sockaball. The Neanderthal cranial shape was longer
and lower.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
In fact, the Neanderthal brain was bigger than ours, as
was the Neanderthal schnarz.
Speaker 7 (14:16):
We guess that the whole nose would have been broader.
They certainly seem to have had a nose that was
capable of very very heavy breathing. It may also have
served a function of warming up and humidifying the air
when they were living in relatively colder and drier conditions.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
They were stockier too, with rib cages that flared out
and shorter limbs better for conserving heat. But recent studies
on the Neanderthal thorax suggest that they might have walked
even more upright than we do. As for what they
sounded like, Neanderthal voices might have been higher pitched than ours.
Listen to this simulation from the BBC.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Let's just add a bit of nasal, now.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Push into me.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
This is actually getting him right into his body, now speak.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
No, that isn't a monty bygone sketch. It's a serious demonstration.
But aside from the physical, what's really surprising is how
on par Neanderthals were with us cognitively and creatively.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
They made a lot of the same kinds of tools
they had fire, They decorated their bodies with jewelry made
from shells, eagle talons, animal teeth, all sorts of fabulous accouterment.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Some of these discoveries of them using feathers systematically and
collecting predominantly the feathers of very dark black birds. We
talk about it as Neanderthal goth because it seems like
they preferred these dark raptors and dark crows and ravens
and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Some scientists speculate that underthals saw power in these dark
birds and thought they'd be imbued with that power if
they wore those feathers. And if you're picturing share in
bob ackeye at the nineteen eighty six oscars, I am too.
And within just the past few years researchers found the
first ever Neanderthal cave paintings and etchings, which reveal inn
(16:22):
early interest in social media.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
There's a great place in Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar that
has this what we call the Neanderthal hashtag because it
looks like that pound sign that is scratched onto the
floor of the cave. What it means, what it meant
to them, we have no idea, but it shows us
(16:50):
some sign from the past that these were thinking beings.
They were conveying something through their use of markings, through
the use of ornaments, and that something was social. It
was something about what they had to say to other individuals,
what they had to communicate about themselves.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
And when it came to hunting, Neanderthals were pretty crafty.
To attach tips to their spears, they made their own glue.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
In order to do that, you have to take birch
bark and smoke it down, reduce it at high temperature
so that the sap inside of it condenses into the
sticky pitch, and that in the end makes a very
very tiny amount of this. So you've got to do
this many times to concentrate it. Neanderthals managed that process.
(17:39):
If I had to assign an engineering class to figure
out how this was done, they would have a hard
time of it.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
All to say that Neanderthals weren't the least bit stupidous,
and neither was Chaka. And the Pecuni had a language.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
It was developed by a UCLA language professor by the
name of Victoria Frompkin.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
After all these years, Philip Paley can still say some
phrases in Paku.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Well, these are classic ones. Mangou sarisa taka and that
means beware of sleestak.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
With an important warning.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Very and uh, there's also oh gunza bisasa what does
that mean? Big magic?
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I love? Who doesn't love big magic? We're back with
Michele and Black talking about what it really means to
be Neanderthal.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
But I mean they were capable of language that we
learned that right, right, But I thought you were just belging. No, No,
I was just grunting in the Neanderthal Neanderthal like way.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
We should have done that at the top of the episode.
So there are two different ways to do it. I
like saying Neanderthal. There are some people that will say
neander Tal. So you are welcome. You can go back
and forth. You can switch over to Neanderthal if you want.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I am now forever more going to pronounce it neander Tall.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Okay, so that's this scud. We're going to do a
split on this, and I'm going to stick with Neanderthal.
You stick with meandertall, and then everybody will be satisfied. Yeah.
Did you like Land of the Loss?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Loved it. There were these uh sid and Marty Croft shows,
and in my memory, that was the only tolerable one, Right,
I loved it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I'm older than you are, so when I watched it,
I could tell it was pretty cheaply done. But I
like the opening credits. That's what I like because it
just seemed really exciting.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Uh yeah, to me, there was nothing cheap about it.
It was as real as real.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Gets rewatching a little bit of Captain Caveman that cartoon,
I remember that I was kind of attracted to Captain Caveman.
I just there was something. Maybe it was I don't
know anyway, And now would I go back and look
at it. I think it's kind of weird because he
looks like a testicle basically.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well, then that explains your attraction.
Speaker 7 (20:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
So so, Michael. Now that we've established that Neanderthals were
intelligent and surprisingly similar to modern humans, that raises the
question why did Neanderthals go extinct? Now there are various
theories on this. First up, Professor Michael Stabwasser from the
University of Cologne in Germany.
Speaker 6 (20:30):
My specialty is a subject called isotope geochemistry.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Oh, he's got my old position. That's what I did before.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Exactly Is this awkward for you?
Speaker 7 (20:39):
No?
Speaker 1 (20:39):
No, no, okay, I mean you know, so I asked
him what he actually does. It's almost like you're a
weatherman for the ancient times.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
Yes, you could say that.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yes, he didn't really like that line, as it could
tell anyway. He thinks it's climate change that did in
the Neanderthals. By studying stalagmites in caves, he determined that
during their last fifty thousand years on Earth, the average
temperature in the Danube Valley, one of the places where
Neanderthals lived, was much colder than it is now. It
(21:10):
was about thirty nine degrees fahrenheit. But and this is crucial,
during that period there were these cold snaps that would
ultimately seal their fate.
Speaker 6 (21:19):
They lasted something between a century and a millennium on average.
They usually led to temperature jobs which could be up
to let's say, six to eight degrees today. It may
not sound drastic, but it makes the difference between being
able to grow crops or not.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
And if you can't eat, you're going to die.
Speaker 6 (21:39):
And then as climate recovered, modern humans basically resettled an
empty area more or less.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
So he isn't saying that modern humans were better adapted
to these cold temperatures than the Neanderthals. I think the
point he's making is that the extinction of Neanderthals was
pretty much bad timing, wrong place, wrong time.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
But they had existed for millennia up until this point
in the average temperature as it's going down could have
forced them south into warmer climates, but it seems like
it didn't do that.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I know, I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
This feels like a very.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Dumb theory, which is why we have another theory for
you on why me Anderthals died off.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Okay, good.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
You remember Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum in London.
He thinks the small population of Neanderthals was essentially swallowed
up by modern humans. Some experts estimate that at tops
there were only about fifty thousand Neanderthals spread all across
the Eurasia. There just weren't that many of them.
Speaker 7 (22:41):
The Neanderthals were relatively low in numbers, and I think
that it probably wouldn't have taken much to push them
over the edge to extinction, and maybe the appearance of
modern humans as a competitor was sufficient to do that.
But of course that's just a guess.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, well that sound that just sounds like the most
likely explanation. There was a sharknado of humans that came
in and just wiped them out. I mean, we have
a habit of doing that. That's kind of what we do.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
It's who we are. But who we are isn't who
we used to think we are. Of course, Neanderthals aren't
really gone. They live in you, Michael and so many others.
Let's find out what that means today. What does it
(23:33):
mean to have within our genetic code a certain percentage
of Neanderthal DNA? I wanted to find out, so I'm
heading to New Jersey to talk to one of the
foremost experts in the field.
Speaker 8 (23:46):
My name is josh Aiky and I'm a professor in
the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in the Lewis
Zigler Institute for integrit Genomics at Princeton University.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
And you did that all in one breath.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
With twenty three and meters, you can discover where in
the world your DNA comes from.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
An unforgettable gift. My heritage DNA order your kid.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
At AncestryDNA dot com.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
I spoke to Professor Ake about what these DNA kits
can tell us. It's one thing to find out that
from one of these mail order things that you're ten
percent Irish, ten percent Mediterranean, you know, five percent African.
But to find out that your two point five percent Neanderthal,
that's a whole other level of self discovery.
Speaker 8 (24:31):
We've always said that our genomes are a mosaic of
different ancestors, and I think what we've learned more recently
is it's a mosaic of both recent ancestors and very
distantly related different types of human ancestors.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Before we could get to know what Neanderthal DNA looked like,
we had to truly understand our own DNA.
Speaker 7 (24:53):
More than a thousand researchers across six nations have.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Revealed nearly all three billion letters of our miraculous code.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
That was President Bill Clinton back in the year two
thousand announcing the first time the human genome was sequenced.
Then in two thousand and six, Swedish scientist Savante Papa
and his team embarked upon sequencing the Neanderthal genome in
a positively Jurassic Parkian way.
Speaker 8 (25:20):
They were able to isolate ancient DNA directly from a
Neanderthal femur bone. So they drill into the long bone
and to a whole bunch of cleanup procedures to try
to make sure that you're just getting Neanderthal DNA.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
All from this femur bone. Amazing. Once we sequenced the
Neanderthal genome, we were able to recognize that we have
what is called archaic DNA within our own genes, and
this bombshell told us a lot about what Neanderthals and
modern humans were doing with one another about forty to
(25:58):
fifty thousand years ago.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Oh.
Speaker 8 (26:03):
It's been interestingly one of the most hotly contested issues
in science for thirty years, with people arguing either there
was admixture that happened between Neanderthals and modern humans or
there wasn't.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
He's talking about sex, and recent studies suggest that they
add mixed a lot. Okay, So where did the modern
humans in the Neanderthals end up hooking up?
Speaker 8 (26:26):
That's a great question and something we still don't know precisely.
It seems to make most sense that the initial rounds
of hybridization happened shortly after modern humans dispersed out of Africa.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
So maybe an Asia minor like in Turkey, Levante, of
like in Syria and Jordan. Okay, so it was a
Middle Eastern that's where they got together.
Speaker 8 (26:47):
That's yes.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
And I can't help but imagine it. I mean in
kind of a literal way. I mean fifty thousand years ago,
modern humans coming out of Africa and meeting a group
of Neanderthals.
Speaker 8 (26:58):
Yeah, and what was that interaction, like, what was that
interaction with it?
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Did the modern human guy walk over to the female
Neanderthal and were they saying like, stop, no, don't do it,
She's not our kind. There's so much we don't know,
but we're learning more every day thanks to Professor Aikey
and his team. He took me on a tour of
their facility.
Speaker 8 (27:22):
So we're going to go look at the experimental and
computational space in the Lewis Sigler Institute. You had to
wear air in at No, we're not going to be baking,
but don't touch anything, okay, mostly for your s So
these are my graduate students pretending like they're working. This
(27:42):
is mor nice to meet you. A thesis project is
on understanding how Neanderthal sequence is distributed across the human genome.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
When you walk down the street, do you ever sort
of wonder the knee underthal content of different people.
Speaker 9 (28:03):
I'm actually really good at picking that out just by
looking at you.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, how much Neanderthal do you think is in me?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Brush back your hair a little bit.
Speaker 9 (28:11):
I think you're about one percent.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Okay, So my friend Mike Liam Black is two point
nine percent Neanderthal. He's an exceptional case. It's amazing. Had
a picture. Wait, let me just show you a picture
of that. Look at that, Look at him.
Speaker 9 (28:28):
Yeah, I can definitely see yeah, because he's got a
small chin, and Neanderthals are known for being relatively chinless,
which is why I think you're lower, because you have
a nice, strong chin.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 9 (28:39):
And he also has this sort of backward sloping foreheads,
which is also very Yeah, what were referred to as
like archaic.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I don't feel like I have a very weak chin.
I don't have a weak don't have a clapped esque chin.
I've never felt the need to beard myself.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
You objectively do not have a weak chin.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
But I do have a reverse sloping forehead. He was
right about that, But so does Roger Stone. And he's gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
All right, all right, one out of two. Let's get
back to the best. After meeting with grad student Aaron,
Professor Age set the record straight. Just because someone has
a lot of Neanderthal DNA doesn't mean his or her
physical appearance will reflect this.
Speaker 8 (29:24):
One of the dirty secrets still about genetics is that
we are not very good at interpreting DNA sequence variation.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
So if I look at my friend Michael and I
see certain features that may look like a rendering of
a Neanderthal. That's just a coincidence.
Speaker 8 (29:41):
It is most likely just a coincidence.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Most like you're leaving a little bit of room there.
Speaker 8 (29:46):
We can never say things with one hundred percent certainty
and science.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
That's hysterical.
Speaker 8 (29:50):
All right, let's go downstairs because that's where the fun
toys are.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
This feels like the movie Coma, Remember Coma.
Speaker 8 (29:58):
This is an alumina H twenty five hundred instruments. So
this is one of the class of next generation sequencers.
You don't have to have large, intact fragments of DNA.
You can sequence from the small degraded fragments that most
Neanderthal ancient DNA exists in because it degrades over time
(30:20):
and you can sequence a lot of it.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Knowing what we do about Neanderthal DNA put the science
fiction part of my brain in full geek out mode.
In our lifetime, will we be able to see, you know,
kind of a living, breathing Neanderthal that's created in a lab.
Speaker 8 (30:37):
The technology to do so arguably exists today.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
You can have like a version of Sturbridge Village or Williamsburg, Virginia,
just a town with all Neanderthals, building tools and grunting
at each other.
Speaker 8 (30:48):
I think it will ultimately be decided that that's an
unethical thing to do. You know what, good just because
you can do something doesn't mean you should do something.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
But what does that Neanderthal DNA mean for us today?
According to Professor Aik, one of the benefits modern humans
got from mating with Neanderthals was it improved their immune systems.
Speaker 8 (31:11):
It was a very efficient way for our ancestors to
quickly adapt to these new conditions was to have sex
with the Neanderthals and just pick up a few beneficial
genes from Neanderthals.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Great, okay, but you don't get the benefits just from
the sacks of your kids, will get it?
Speaker 8 (31:24):
Yes, yeah, it's a persistent benefit.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
I almost never get sick, per the Neanderthal thing. Yes,
almost never. I can't remember the last time I was sick.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Wow, and you have kids and I had.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Kids and the whole thing. I never get the flu,
I never get colds. I never really get anything.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
That is interesting. But wait, there's more to the benefits
of having Neanderthal DNA.
Speaker 8 (31:44):
There are a few genes that are clearly important in
early formation of skin, like keratin, proteins.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Neanderthals had nice nails.
Speaker 8 (31:55):
Perhaps it was nice nails, our hair.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
My nails I think are fine.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, I like, thanks, don't think me yet. Your Neanderthal
DNA does have some downsides. It may play a factoring depression,
and it may have something to do with chain smoking.
Speaker 8 (32:10):
It just so happens that this sequence now influences your
ability to stop smoking.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Okay, never smoked.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
It's a good thing you've never smoked, because you fined
it harder to quit.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I may just take up the habit just to see
if it's right right, just to test this proposition.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
One of the most mind blowing things the field of
archaic genomics hasn't covered is that modern humans and Neanderthals
weren't the only people around.
Speaker 8 (32:39):
Thirty thousand years ago. Forty thousand years ago, we walked
around the Earth, we'd find modern humans Neanderthals. Denisovans that
if we went to the island of Flores, we'd see
the hobbit individuals. So there was hobbits Homo florencias, so
very small, diminutive archaic human types. So the world was
(33:00):
a much more interesting place fifty thousand years ago and
today the only remnants that we see of these archaic
forms of humans are the scattered remains of their DNA
and the genomes of modern individuals.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
I may not only have Neanderthal DNA. I may have Denisovan, hobbit,
or who knows what. So I decided to take a test.
Do you know one thing about myself? I wonder if
my caveman ancestors were any better at opening packages? A
(33:38):
saliva collection kept and right, no food or drink for
thirty minutes. Okay, spit to fill mine all right, here
we go. Oh god, that's a lot of spit. Twenty
minutes later, my cup runneth over with saliva. I have
to say this is bringing out a little bit of
(33:58):
my competitive tendency. I'm a little jealous that Michael is
so neanderthal and uh and I don't know. We'll see
time to see who's the neanderthalist of them all. And
so I actually have the result.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
I looked yet, but you haven't looked.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I have not looked. So I as you heard, I
spit in an envelope and sent it in and I'm
going to look. Now. Your DNA tells a story of
who you are and how you're connected to populations, trace
your heritage through the Century's an un covered Cleo one
hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
What does that mean, Cleo?
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah? What is Cleo? Gideon?
Speaker 9 (34:38):
Hey, Moe, Remember you were a little nervous about using
your real name.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
I use the name of my cat.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Oh that's the name of Gideon's cat. Is Cleo.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I'm one hundred percent Khalio.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
It was like so week.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
I thought maybe it meant, oh, you've got one hundred
percent of a mark for some disease that's going to
kill you.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Oh, the Cleo disease. Okay, all right, it's already says
our ancestry composition. Your DNA suggests your ancestry is forty
point eight percent Iberian with ties to five other populations.
And I'm going to view report. Wow, some over forty
percent Spanish, okay, which is kind of sexy.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
And did you know that?
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Well, my mother's Colombian. Okay, so thirty point two percent
Italian Italy, I'm point three percent Ashkenazi Jewish?
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Are you yes, welcome?
Speaker 1 (35:36):
I It's interesting because a cab driver the other day
as said, are you Jewish?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Said to you, are you Jewish?
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (35:44):
And now you can answer in the affirmative. Hell, yes,
I am, Hell.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yes, Okay, I'm three point five percent East Asian and
Native American.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
That's what I was looking for. Oh my god, I
have it.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Congrats, Thank you, God, don't be jealous. Okay, two point
seven percent Native American, Colombia, Venezuela plus three more goubab
Brasil and Maica. That's great. I'm so excited. So where
do I find my Neanderthal?
Speaker 2 (36:12):
It was on a separate tab as far as I recall.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
So it looks like I have only only two hundred
and thirty six Neanderthal variants, which puts me in the
bottom eleven percent in terms of Neanderthal content.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Well, it sounds like that researcher was right that you
have less Neanderthal than the average person. If you have
less than eighty nine percent of twenty three and meter customers,
that suggests to me you don't have very much at all.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Right, I guess that's what it means anyway. So okay,
so we can conclude I have virtually no Neanderthal hence
are different pronunciations of Neanderthal.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yes, but you do have a real s'mortisboard of all
everything that I wanted, so I wouldn't say it's a tie.
I would say you're slightly ahead in the genetic lottery.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
You said Asmargus board, But I have no Northern Europeans,
so that's why we should what would be something more?
Payea much? I love it so much. Well, mich Leean Black,
I want to thank you, but you should really be
thanking me because this was about finding your roots since
(37:22):
I'm basically zero percent Neanderthal.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well, thank you. I mean I really feel like I
learned a lot about myself, about my family. I now
know more about you and simultaneously think less of you
because you are not of my species. But yeah, this
was a blast.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Before we close, a word from the University of Wisconsin's
John Hawkes on his predecessors in Neanderthal research, those people
whose early analysis set the stage for how Neanderthals were
seen for so long.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
When we look at the scientific world of the Victorian era,
you're looking at people who became aware of human variation
around the world, but they interpreted it in a very
culturally insensitive way. You look at the past and think,
oh my gosh, I can't believe that they said that,
But that was the way that they approached their science.
(38:19):
Today we look at things totally differently, and when we
look at extinct human groups, they had their own ways
of living in the world. You have to appreciate they're
not us, but they lived at a time with incredible
challenges and they overcame those challenges, and that is something
really fundamentally similar that we share.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
With them today. We're all experts. I mean, we can
just spit in an envelope and get all the answers right.
Far from it. Let's all hope that science and technology
will allow us, one day to understand why a species
(38:58):
of humans as advance anst as the Neanderthals, disappeared from
the planet, so that maybe, just maybe we don't disappear,
at least not before our next episode of Mobituaries featuring
the incomparable Sammy Davis Junior. I certainly hope you enjoyed
(39:26):
this episode and if you would, please rate and review
our podcast. You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram,
and you can follow me on Twitter at Morocca tell
me how Neanderthal you are. For more great content, please
visit mobituaries dot com. You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever
you get your podcasts. This episode of Mobituaries was produced
(39:49):
by Gideon Evans. Our team of producers also includes Megan Marcus,
Kate mccaulliff, Megan Detri and me Moroka. It was edited
by David Fox and in neared by Dan de Zula.
Indispensable support from Justin had Genius, Deneski, Kira Wardlow, Zach Gilcrest,
the team at CBS News Radio, and Richard Rarer. Our
(40:12):
theme music is written by Daniel Hart. Special thanks to
Gary Perdue, Minora Sistiaga and London's Natural History Museum, and
as always, undying thanks to Rand Morrison and John Carp
without whom Mobituaries couldn't live. Hi, It's mo. If you're
(40:37):
enjoying Mobituaries the podcast, may I invite you to check
out Mobituaries the book. It's chock full of stories not
in the podcast. Celebrities who put their butts on the line,
sports teams that threw in the towel for good, forgotten fashions,
defunct diagnoses, presidential candidacies that cratered, whole countries that went caput.
(41:00):
And dragons, Yes, dragons, you see, people used to believe
the dragons were real until just get the book. You
can order Mobituaries the book from any online bookseller, or
stop by your local bookstore and look for me when
I come to your city. Tour information and lots more
at mobituaries dot com
During the earliest days of this millennium, I took part
in the Kind of History series, an ambitious survey that
explored milestones in American culture decade by decade. Of course
I'm talking about and after. I loved the eighties there
(00:26):
was and really who could forget? What made Dynasty wick
was the campfights. Yeah, he went from John Cougar to
John Cougar Mellencamp and I thought, did he get married?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
John Travolta's asked Urban Cowboy is that there should be
a shrine built too.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It was a classy show featuring a panoply of commentators,
and I was one of them, pondering complex topics like
nineteen eighties hospit dramas.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Saying elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
It was an hour long drama. It starred Mark Harman
as doctor Bobby Caldwell. Comedian and actor Michael Ian Black
was another contributor.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I thought, if anything, the title That's Incredible was an
understatement of how incredible the things on That's Incredible were.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
We didn't really know each other back then, but I
distinctly remember his take on the nineteen eighty one Neanderthal
epic Quest for Fire. While most of us were obsessed
with the film's nudity. Michael took the high road.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I was really looking at it more from an anthropological
point of view than to see Raydon Jones.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Tataz And it's that prehistory that's our subject to this episode.
Since Quest for Fire, we've learned some stunning truths about Neanderthals,
and I knew who. I wanted to discuss this topic
with my friend Michael ian Black back when we were
(01:58):
loving the eighties. Neither of us knew just how connected
he is to our human cousins of four thousand decades ago.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
If they had told me only how much Neanderthal I am,
I would have paid twice the amount for the test.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
I'm Morocca. And this is mobituaries, This mobid Neanderthals circa
forty thousand years ago. Death of a human species. Okay, first,
(02:34):
let's take care of some basics. The name Neanderthal comes
from the neander Valley in Germany, where one of the
first Neanderthal skulls was found in eighteen fifty six. At
the time, the fossil was misidentified as the skull of
a Cossack soldier from the Napoleonic Wars. They were only
off by a few tens of thousands of years now.
(02:54):
Neanderthals were also human, but a separate species Homo sapiens.
That's us and Neanderthals did share a common ancestor over
half a million years ago. Homo sapiens would go on
to flourish in Africa, while Neanderthals roamed across Europe and Asia,
adapting to a colder, harsher climate. Eventually the two species
(03:15):
did meet up. Then, about thirty to forty thousand years ago,
Neanderthals disappeared without a trace, or so we thought, which
brings me to my guest, Michael Ian Black. So, Michael
Ian Black, thank you so much for joining me for
this whole episode.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Let's get the promotion out of the way first, because
it's deserved. Your podcast, How to Be Amazing is amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yes, you can be on it, mo, Yes, that's where
I was going.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
So years ago I interviewed you about your one of
your books, Naval Gazing, and in it you talked about
genetic testing and why did you go about investigating your
genetic makeup?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I think the same reason most people do, just curiosity.
I just wanted to know genetically speaking who I am.
I had it in my head that I must be
at least a pastiche of things, some kind of milange.
I was hoping to find some African American, some Native American,
(04:21):
but the results were so disappointingly kind of exactly what
I had been led to believe, which is that I
am a one hundred percent Ashkanazi Jew.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I do think the food is better than Sephardic food.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Delicious, delicious if you just take the gefilter fish out
of that which I have always associated and will always
associate with just jellied cat turns.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
But you say you found out you were one hundred
percent Ashkanazi Jew, But that's not quite right.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Well, it is in terms of ethicity, But there was
also a which I didn't know till I got it
back from the company, that says it will also tell
you your Neanderthal percentages. If they had told me only
how much Neanderthal I am, I would have paid twice
(05:15):
the amount for the test, because for some reason, that
just really captured my imagination to think, oh, I may
be part of an entirely different species. That was thrilling
to me. And I didn't know that they had developed
the test, and I found out that I am two
point nine percent Neanderthal, which is greater than the norm.
(05:37):
The average is a two point seven percent.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Okay, that's a significant difference.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I mean, I can't tell you how delighted I was
to hear this, because your listeners can't see me, but
you can probably tell by the way I speak and
the timber of my voice that I am not the
most masculine of fellows.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
But I.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Mean, I mean, I'm tolerant, but to a point.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
But just the popular image of the Neanderthal as a
lumbering brute, as this strong survivor out on the steps
in planes just thrilled me to no end. And so
I was delighted. And I told my wife that I
am above averagely Neanderthal, and she said, that's why you
(06:26):
look like that, and she did not mean it as
a compliment.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
And let me just say that Martha is highly evolved.
She's basically Daryl Hannah and Clana the cave bear. I mean,
a highly evalved, leggy blonde.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yes she is.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
But wait, wait, hold on. When you describe Neanderthals as
masculine lumbering brutes, you're making certain assumptions and we'll dispel
some of these in this episode. For instance, how do
we know there weren't cultured episcene Neanderthals.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well, I think we do know, now you are doing
the research, and I'm just speaking off the top of
my head. Now they were kindessurs of fine wine. Is
my understanding. They did puppet shows.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Oh, Michael, we've got some work to do. Think of
me as your Henry Lewis Gates and this is finding
your roots, or as Lisa Caudreaux and this is who
do you think you are? I think that's her show.
I want you to know that your Neanderthal ancestors were
pretty darn special and not as different from us normal
people as you may think. So how did they get
such a bad rap? Let's find out. I grew up
(07:34):
with so many classic TV shows and films about Neanderthals
and cavemen, and they pretty much all got it wrong.
In nineteen eighty one, there was the aforementioned Quest for Fire.
The characters basically just plump through the whole movie, except
when one of them gets beamed in the head by
a rock and then everyone laughs. That same year, moviegoers
(08:02):
were subjected to the Ringo Star vehicle caveman Bobo Bobo.
During the course of the movie, a bunch of bumbling
cavemen discover fire, how to light farts on fire, and
jam bands and who could forget the mel blank voiced
(08:26):
cartoon character. But as far as portrayals of the primordial
go the show that had the biggest impact on me
was Land of the Lost. The theme song told the
story of the series. It's about a family on a
(08:47):
river rafting trip. During the ride, they go down a
magical waterfall and enter a universe filled with dinosaurs and
cave creatures.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Hi, I'm Phil Paley and I played Chaka on the
seventies show Land of the Lost.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
You were only nine years old when he got this role.
Tell us about the character.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Chaka was the youngest of the Pakuni clan. What do
you think he is.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I'm kind of a Cayman, a monkey or what Chakkaka.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I wore a prosthetic head piece, so it had a
very prominent brow and forehead, so it did kind of
look neanderthal ish.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
I guess back when I watched the show, I kind
of assumed Chaka was a Neanderthal, But looking back at
the clips now he seems more monkey boy free all over,
except for his face.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
The suit was made out of like nylon pantihose material
with a real human hair hands sewn into it, so
it made it kind of itchy.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Luckily, there are some people who know the difference between
Saturday morning science fiction and real science.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
Anything that depicts Neanderthals as basically bad hair, that's what
I laugh about.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Professor John Hawks from the University of Wisconsin at eau
Claire is one of the world's leading experts on Neanderthals.
Why have Neanderthals had such a bad reputation.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
The Neanderthals are a group that doesn't have an advocacy.
They don't have a lobby. You know, there's there's not
Neanderthal representatives calling their congressmen and so as a consequence,
if you thought something bad about the past, you know,
they were a convenient group because they weren't going to complain.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
It's so easy to use Geico dot com. A caveman
could do it.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
What.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Oh no, I'm not cool.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
I did not know you were there.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
The Neanderthals in those Geico commercials might be funny, but
make no mistake, we're laughing at them. So how did
this stereotyping of me Anderthals as a brutish, howling and
stupid get started. John Hawkes says it may have begun
with a nineteenth century German biologist named Ernst Heckel, who
(11:12):
attempted to map a genealogical tree of all living things.
When he came to early versions of us, he had
no fossils to study. It was pretty much just guesswork.
He chose a rather insulting classification.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
The name that he had for the predecessor of humans
that would be the Neanderthals basically was Homo's stupidness.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yes, Homo's stupidness, But it was the French who really
gave Neanderthals a bad name. In nineteen oh eight, a
nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton was found in a cave in
the town of La Chapelle au Saine. Paleontologist Marcel Bull
analyzed the remains of this individual and made sweeping and
(11:54):
hugely influential assumptions about the entire species.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
The image that came out of his work was hairy
and pretty ape like, with displayed toes and a slouching,
hunched posture.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Kate Wong is a writer for Scientific American, And what.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Researchers later determined was that this was an older individual,
this Neanderthal, who had suffered from severe arthritis. So all
of the sort of features that led Bull to assume
that the species had these slouched, stooped traits were actually
the result of disease.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
That is really hilarious to me, isn't it wild? And
I've wondered about that before, Like, when you find an
individual species of something, what if you're finding a weird
member of that species and it turns out that's exactly
what happened with the Neanderthals.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Totally an agreement of fascinating and hilarious. But hold on,
there's more. The old Man of La Chappelle, as he
came to be known, became the public's picture of neanders
for generations.
Speaker 7 (13:02):
They were the archetypal cave people, and that image, unfortunate,
has stuck with the Neanderthals over one hundred years later.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Professor Chris Stringer, the research leader at the Natural History
Museum in London, tells me part of the problem was
that in the early twentieth century we didn't understand how
evolution worked.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
There was this rather simplistic idea that they would be
missing links to be found in the story of human evolution.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
And it was because we were so fixated on the
idea of a missing link that we typecast Neanderthals into
the role of a half ape, half human caveman lah
atuk lor. But thanks to the rapid advancement and the
study of archaic humans, the image of the Neanderthal is
(13:48):
finally changing. To be sure, Neanderthals were different from us
in appearance. The pronounced brow ridge and sloping forehead in
those Geico commercials weren't tramped up by making up artists.
Speaker 7 (14:01):
So our brain case shape is rather globular, sometimes described
as like a sockaball. The Neanderthal cranial shape was longer
and lower.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
In fact, the Neanderthal brain was bigger than ours, as
was the Neanderthal schnarz.
Speaker 7 (14:16):
We guess that the whole nose would have been broader.
They certainly seem to have had a nose that was
capable of very very heavy breathing. It may also have
served a function of warming up and humidifying the air
when they were living in relatively colder and drier conditions.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
They were stockier too, with rib cages that flared out
and shorter limbs better for conserving heat. But recent studies
on the Neanderthal thorax suggest that they might have walked
even more upright than we do. As for what they
sounded like, Neanderthal voices might have been higher pitched than ours.
Listen to this simulation from the BBC.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Let's just add a bit of nasal, now.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Push into me.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
This is actually getting him right into his body, now speak.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
No, that isn't a monty bygone sketch. It's a serious demonstration.
But aside from the physical, what's really surprising is how
on par Neanderthals were with us cognitively and creatively.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
They made a lot of the same kinds of tools
they had fire, They decorated their bodies with jewelry made
from shells, eagle talons, animal teeth, all sorts of fabulous accouterment.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Some of these discoveries of them using feathers systematically and
collecting predominantly the feathers of very dark black birds. We
talk about it as Neanderthal goth because it seems like
they preferred these dark raptors and dark crows and ravens
and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Some scientists speculate that underthals saw power in these dark
birds and thought they'd be imbued with that power if
they wore those feathers. And if you're picturing share in
bob ackeye at the nineteen eighty six oscars, I am too.
And within just the past few years researchers found the
first ever Neanderthal cave paintings and etchings, which reveal inn
(16:22):
early interest in social media.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
There's a great place in Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar that
has this what we call the Neanderthal hashtag because it
looks like that pound sign that is scratched onto the
floor of the cave. What it means, what it meant
to them, we have no idea, but it shows us
(16:50):
some sign from the past that these were thinking beings.
They were conveying something through their use of markings, through
the use of ornaments, and that something was social. It
was something about what they had to say to other individuals,
what they had to communicate about themselves.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
And when it came to hunting, Neanderthals were pretty crafty.
To attach tips to their spears, they made their own glue.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
In order to do that, you have to take birch
bark and smoke it down, reduce it at high temperature
so that the sap inside of it condenses into the
sticky pitch, and that in the end makes a very
very tiny amount of this. So you've got to do
this many times to concentrate it. Neanderthals managed that process.
(17:39):
If I had to assign an engineering class to figure
out how this was done, they would have a hard
time of it.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
All to say that Neanderthals weren't the least bit stupidous,
and neither was Chaka. And the Pecuni had a language.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
It was developed by a UCLA language professor by the
name of Victoria Frompkin.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
After all these years, Philip Paley can still say some
phrases in Paku.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Well, these are classic ones. Mangou sarisa taka and that
means beware of sleestak.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
With an important warning.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Very and uh, there's also oh gunza bisasa what does
that mean? Big magic?
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I love? Who doesn't love big magic? We're back with
Michele and Black talking about what it really means to
be Neanderthal.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
But I mean they were capable of language that we
learned that right, right, But I thought you were just belging. No, No,
I was just grunting in the Neanderthal Neanderthal like way.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
We should have done that at the top of the episode.
So there are two different ways to do it. I
like saying Neanderthal. There are some people that will say
neander Tal. So you are welcome. You can go back
and forth. You can switch over to Neanderthal if you want.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I am now forever more going to pronounce it neander Tall.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Okay, so that's this scud. We're going to do a
split on this, and I'm going to stick with Neanderthal.
You stick with meandertall, and then everybody will be satisfied. Yeah.
Did you like Land of the Loss?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Loved it. There were these uh sid and Marty Croft shows,
and in my memory, that was the only tolerable one, Right,
I loved it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I'm older than you are, so when I watched it,
I could tell it was pretty cheaply done. But I
like the opening credits. That's what I like because it
just seemed really exciting.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Uh yeah, to me, there was nothing cheap about it.
It was as real as real.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Gets rewatching a little bit of Captain Caveman that cartoon,
I remember that I was kind of attracted to Captain Caveman.
I just there was something. Maybe it was I don't
know anyway, And now would I go back and look
at it. I think it's kind of weird because he
looks like a testicle basically.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well, then that explains your attraction.
Speaker 7 (20:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
So so, Michael. Now that we've established that Neanderthals were
intelligent and surprisingly similar to modern humans, that raises the
question why did Neanderthals go extinct? Now there are various
theories on this. First up, Professor Michael Stabwasser from the
University of Cologne in Germany.
Speaker 6 (20:30):
My specialty is a subject called isotope geochemistry.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Oh, he's got my old position. That's what I did before.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Exactly Is this awkward for you?
Speaker 7 (20:39):
No?
Speaker 1 (20:39):
No, no, okay, I mean you know, so I asked
him what he actually does. It's almost like you're a
weatherman for the ancient times.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
Yes, you could say that.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yes, he didn't really like that line, as it could
tell anyway. He thinks it's climate change that did in
the Neanderthals. By studying stalagmites in caves, he determined that
during their last fifty thousand years on Earth, the average
temperature in the Danube Valley, one of the places where
Neanderthals lived, was much colder than it is now. It
(21:10):
was about thirty nine degrees fahrenheit. But and this is crucial,
during that period there were these cold snaps that would
ultimately seal their fate.
Speaker 6 (21:19):
They lasted something between a century and a millennium on average.
They usually led to temperature jobs which could be up
to let's say, six to eight degrees today. It may
not sound drastic, but it makes the difference between being
able to grow crops or not.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
And if you can't eat, you're going to die.
Speaker 6 (21:39):
And then as climate recovered, modern humans basically resettled an
empty area more or less.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
So he isn't saying that modern humans were better adapted
to these cold temperatures than the Neanderthals. I think the
point he's making is that the extinction of Neanderthals was
pretty much bad timing, wrong place, wrong time.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
But they had existed for millennia up until this point
in the average temperature as it's going down could have
forced them south into warmer climates, but it seems like
it didn't do that.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I know, I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
This feels like a very.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Dumb theory, which is why we have another theory for
you on why me Anderthals died off.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Okay, good.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
You remember Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum in London.
He thinks the small population of Neanderthals was essentially swallowed
up by modern humans. Some experts estimate that at tops
there were only about fifty thousand Neanderthals spread all across
the Eurasia. There just weren't that many of them.
Speaker 7 (22:41):
The Neanderthals were relatively low in numbers, and I think
that it probably wouldn't have taken much to push them
over the edge to extinction, and maybe the appearance of
modern humans as a competitor was sufficient to do that.
But of course that's just a guess.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, well that sound that just sounds like the most
likely explanation. There was a sharknado of humans that came
in and just wiped them out. I mean, we have
a habit of doing that. That's kind of what we do.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
It's who we are. But who we are isn't who
we used to think we are. Of course, Neanderthals aren't
really gone. They live in you, Michael and so many others.
Let's find out what that means today. What does it
(23:33):
mean to have within our genetic code a certain percentage
of Neanderthal DNA? I wanted to find out, so I'm
heading to New Jersey to talk to one of the
foremost experts in the field.
Speaker 8 (23:46):
My name is josh Aiky and I'm a professor in
the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in the Lewis
Zigler Institute for integrit Genomics at Princeton University.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
And you did that all in one breath.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
With twenty three and meters, you can discover where in
the world your DNA comes from.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
An unforgettable gift. My heritage DNA order your kid.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
At AncestryDNA dot com.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
I spoke to Professor Ake about what these DNA kits
can tell us. It's one thing to find out that
from one of these mail order things that you're ten
percent Irish, ten percent Mediterranean, you know, five percent African.
But to find out that your two point five percent Neanderthal,
that's a whole other level of self discovery.
Speaker 8 (24:31):
We've always said that our genomes are a mosaic of
different ancestors, and I think what we've learned more recently
is it's a mosaic of both recent ancestors and very
distantly related different types of human ancestors.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Before we could get to know what Neanderthal DNA looked like,
we had to truly understand our own DNA.
Speaker 7 (24:53):
More than a thousand researchers across six nations have.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Revealed nearly all three billion letters of our miraculous code.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
That was President Bill Clinton back in the year two
thousand announcing the first time the human genome was sequenced.
Then in two thousand and six, Swedish scientist Savante Papa
and his team embarked upon sequencing the Neanderthal genome in
a positively Jurassic Parkian way.
Speaker 8 (25:20):
They were able to isolate ancient DNA directly from a
Neanderthal femur bone. So they drill into the long bone
and to a whole bunch of cleanup procedures to try
to make sure that you're just getting Neanderthal DNA.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
All from this femur bone. Amazing. Once we sequenced the
Neanderthal genome, we were able to recognize that we have
what is called archaic DNA within our own genes, and
this bombshell told us a lot about what Neanderthals and
modern humans were doing with one another about forty to
(25:58):
fifty thousand years ago.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Oh.
Speaker 8 (26:03):
It's been interestingly one of the most hotly contested issues
in science for thirty years, with people arguing either there
was admixture that happened between Neanderthals and modern humans or
there wasn't.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
He's talking about sex, and recent studies suggest that they
add mixed a lot. Okay, So where did the modern
humans in the Neanderthals end up hooking up?
Speaker 8 (26:26):
That's a great question and something we still don't know precisely.
It seems to make most sense that the initial rounds
of hybridization happened shortly after modern humans dispersed out of Africa.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
So maybe an Asia minor like in Turkey, Levante, of
like in Syria and Jordan. Okay, so it was a
Middle Eastern that's where they got together.
Speaker 8 (26:47):
That's yes.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
And I can't help but imagine it. I mean in
kind of a literal way. I mean fifty thousand years ago,
modern humans coming out of Africa and meeting a group
of Neanderthals.
Speaker 8 (26:58):
Yeah, and what was that interaction, like, what was that
interaction with it?
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Did the modern human guy walk over to the female
Neanderthal and were they saying like, stop, no, don't do it,
She's not our kind. There's so much we don't know,
but we're learning more every day thanks to Professor Aikey
and his team. He took me on a tour of
their facility.
Speaker 8 (27:22):
So we're going to go look at the experimental and
computational space in the Lewis Sigler Institute. You had to
wear air in at No, we're not going to be baking,
but don't touch anything, okay, mostly for your s So
these are my graduate students pretending like they're working. This
(27:42):
is mor nice to meet you. A thesis project is
on understanding how Neanderthal sequence is distributed across the human genome.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
When you walk down the street, do you ever sort
of wonder the knee underthal content of different people.
Speaker 9 (28:03):
I'm actually really good at picking that out just by
looking at you.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, how much Neanderthal do you think is in me?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Brush back your hair a little bit.
Speaker 9 (28:11):
I think you're about one percent.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Okay, So my friend Mike Liam Black is two point
nine percent Neanderthal. He's an exceptional case. It's amazing. Had
a picture. Wait, let me just show you a picture
of that. Look at that, Look at him.
Speaker 9 (28:28):
Yeah, I can definitely see yeah, because he's got a
small chin, and Neanderthals are known for being relatively chinless,
which is why I think you're lower, because you have
a nice, strong chin.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 9 (28:39):
And he also has this sort of backward sloping foreheads,
which is also very Yeah, what were referred to as
like archaic.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I don't feel like I have a very weak chin.
I don't have a weak don't have a clapped esque chin.
I've never felt the need to beard myself.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
You objectively do not have a weak chin.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
But I do have a reverse sloping forehead. He was
right about that, But so does Roger Stone. And he's gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
All right, all right, one out of two. Let's get
back to the best. After meeting with grad student Aaron,
Professor Age set the record straight. Just because someone has
a lot of Neanderthal DNA doesn't mean his or her
physical appearance will reflect this.
Speaker 8 (29:24):
One of the dirty secrets still about genetics is that
we are not very good at interpreting DNA sequence variation.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
So if I look at my friend Michael and I
see certain features that may look like a rendering of
a Neanderthal. That's just a coincidence.
Speaker 8 (29:41):
It is most likely just a coincidence.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Most like you're leaving a little bit of room there.
Speaker 8 (29:46):
We can never say things with one hundred percent certainty
and science.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
That's hysterical.
Speaker 8 (29:50):
All right, let's go downstairs because that's where the fun
toys are.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
This feels like the movie Coma, Remember Coma.
Speaker 8 (29:58):
This is an alumina H twenty five hundred instruments. So
this is one of the class of next generation sequencers.
You don't have to have large, intact fragments of DNA.
You can sequence from the small degraded fragments that most
Neanderthal ancient DNA exists in because it degrades over time
(30:20):
and you can sequence a lot of it.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Knowing what we do about Neanderthal DNA put the science
fiction part of my brain in full geek out mode.
In our lifetime, will we be able to see, you know,
kind of a living, breathing Neanderthal that's created in a lab.
Speaker 8 (30:37):
The technology to do so arguably exists today.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
You can have like a version of Sturbridge Village or Williamsburg, Virginia,
just a town with all Neanderthals, building tools and grunting
at each other.
Speaker 8 (30:48):
I think it will ultimately be decided that that's an
unethical thing to do. You know what, good just because
you can do something doesn't mean you should do something.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
But what does that Neanderthal DNA mean for us today?
According to Professor Aik, one of the benefits modern humans
got from mating with Neanderthals was it improved their immune systems.
Speaker 8 (31:11):
It was a very efficient way for our ancestors to
quickly adapt to these new conditions was to have sex
with the Neanderthals and just pick up a few beneficial
genes from Neanderthals.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Great, okay, but you don't get the benefits just from
the sacks of your kids, will get it?
Speaker 8 (31:24):
Yes, yeah, it's a persistent benefit.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
I almost never get sick, per the Neanderthal thing. Yes,
almost never. I can't remember the last time I was sick.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Wow, and you have kids and I had.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Kids and the whole thing. I never get the flu,
I never get colds. I never really get anything.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
That is interesting. But wait, there's more to the benefits
of having Neanderthal DNA.
Speaker 8 (31:44):
There are a few genes that are clearly important in
early formation of skin, like keratin, proteins.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Neanderthals had nice nails.
Speaker 8 (31:55):
Perhaps it was nice nails, our hair.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
My nails I think are fine.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, I like, thanks, don't think me yet. Your Neanderthal
DNA does have some downsides. It may play a factoring depression,
and it may have something to do with chain smoking.
Speaker 8 (32:10):
It just so happens that this sequence now influences your
ability to stop smoking.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Okay, never smoked.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
It's a good thing you've never smoked, because you fined
it harder to quit.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I may just take up the habit just to see
if it's right right, just to test this proposition.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
One of the most mind blowing things the field of
archaic genomics hasn't covered is that modern humans and Neanderthals
weren't the only people around.
Speaker 8 (32:39):
Thirty thousand years ago. Forty thousand years ago, we walked
around the Earth, we'd find modern humans Neanderthals. Denisovans that
if we went to the island of Flores, we'd see
the hobbit individuals. So there was hobbits Homo florencias, so
very small, diminutive archaic human types. So the world was
(33:00):
a much more interesting place fifty thousand years ago and
today the only remnants that we see of these archaic
forms of humans are the scattered remains of their DNA
and the genomes of modern individuals.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
I may not only have Neanderthal DNA. I may have Denisovan, hobbit,
or who knows what. So I decided to take a test.
Do you know one thing about myself? I wonder if
my caveman ancestors were any better at opening packages? A
(33:38):
saliva collection kept and right, no food or drink for
thirty minutes. Okay, spit to fill mine all right, here
we go. Oh god, that's a lot of spit. Twenty
minutes later, my cup runneth over with saliva. I have
to say this is bringing out a little bit of
(33:58):
my competitive tendency. I'm a little jealous that Michael is
so neanderthal and uh and I don't know. We'll see
time to see who's the neanderthalist of them all. And
so I actually have the result.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
I looked yet, but you haven't looked.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I have not looked. So I as you heard, I
spit in an envelope and sent it in and I'm
going to look. Now. Your DNA tells a story of
who you are and how you're connected to populations, trace
your heritage through the Century's an un covered Cleo one
hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
What does that mean, Cleo?
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah? What is Cleo? Gideon?
Speaker 9 (34:38):
Hey, Moe, Remember you were a little nervous about using
your real name.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
I use the name of my cat.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Oh that's the name of Gideon's cat. Is Cleo.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I'm one hundred percent Khalio.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
It was like so week.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
I thought maybe it meant, oh, you've got one hundred
percent of a mark for some disease that's going to
kill you.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Oh, the Cleo disease. Okay, all right, it's already says
our ancestry composition. Your DNA suggests your ancestry is forty
point eight percent Iberian with ties to five other populations.
And I'm going to view report. Wow, some over forty
percent Spanish, okay, which is kind of sexy.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
And did you know that?
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Well, my mother's Colombian. Okay, so thirty point two percent
Italian Italy, I'm point three percent Ashkenazi Jewish?
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Are you yes, welcome?
Speaker 1 (35:36):
I It's interesting because a cab driver the other day
as said, are you Jewish?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Said to you, are you Jewish?
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (35:44):
And now you can answer in the affirmative. Hell, yes,
I am, Hell.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yes, Okay, I'm three point five percent East Asian and
Native American.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
That's what I was looking for. Oh my god, I
have it.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Congrats, Thank you, God, don't be jealous. Okay, two point
seven percent Native American, Colombia, Venezuela plus three more goubab
Brasil and Maica. That's great. I'm so excited. So where
do I find my Neanderthal?
Speaker 2 (36:12):
It was on a separate tab as far as I recall.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
So it looks like I have only only two hundred
and thirty six Neanderthal variants, which puts me in the
bottom eleven percent in terms of Neanderthal content.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Well, it sounds like that researcher was right that you
have less Neanderthal than the average person. If you have
less than eighty nine percent of twenty three and meter customers,
that suggests to me you don't have very much at all.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Right, I guess that's what it means anyway. So okay,
so we can conclude I have virtually no Neanderthal hence
are different pronunciations of Neanderthal.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yes, but you do have a real s'mortisboard of all
everything that I wanted, so I wouldn't say it's a tie.
I would say you're slightly ahead in the genetic lottery.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
You said Asmargus board, But I have no Northern Europeans,
so that's why we should what would be something more?
Payea much? I love it so much. Well, mich Leean Black,
I want to thank you, but you should really be
thanking me because this was about finding your roots since
(37:22):
I'm basically zero percent Neanderthal.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well, thank you. I mean I really feel like I
learned a lot about myself, about my family. I now
know more about you and simultaneously think less of you
because you are not of my species. But yeah, this
was a blast.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Before we close, a word from the University of Wisconsin's
John Hawkes on his predecessors in Neanderthal research, those people
whose early analysis set the stage for how Neanderthals were
seen for so long.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
When we look at the scientific world of the Victorian era,
you're looking at people who became aware of human variation
around the world, but they interpreted it in a very
culturally insensitive way. You look at the past and think,
oh my gosh, I can't believe that they said that,
But that was the way that they approached their science.
(38:19):
Today we look at things totally differently, and when we
look at extinct human groups, they had their own ways
of living in the world. You have to appreciate they're
not us, but they lived at a time with incredible
challenges and they overcame those challenges, and that is something
really fundamentally similar that we share.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
With them today. We're all experts. I mean, we can
just spit in an envelope and get all the answers right.
Far from it. Let's all hope that science and technology
will allow us, one day to understand why a species
(38:58):
of humans as advance anst as the Neanderthals, disappeared from
the planet, so that maybe, just maybe we don't disappear,
at least not before our next episode of Mobituaries featuring
the incomparable Sammy Davis Junior. I certainly hope you enjoyed
(39:26):
this episode and if you would, please rate and review
our podcast. You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram,
and you can follow me on Twitter at Morocca tell
me how Neanderthal you are. For more great content, please
visit mobituaries dot com. You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever
you get your podcasts. This episode of Mobituaries was produced
(39:49):
by Gideon Evans. Our team of producers also includes Megan Marcus,
Kate mccaulliff, Megan Detri and me Moroka. It was edited
by David Fox and in neared by Dan de Zula.
Indispensable support from Justin had Genius, Deneski, Kira Wardlow, Zach Gilcrest,
the team at CBS News Radio, and Richard Rarer. Our
(40:12):
theme music is written by Daniel Hart. Special thanks to
Gary Perdue, Minora Sistiaga and London's Natural History Museum, and
as always, undying thanks to Rand Morrison and John Carp
without whom Mobituaries couldn't live. Hi, It's mo. If you're
(40:37):
enjoying Mobituaries the podcast, may I invite you to check
out Mobituaries the book. It's chock full of stories not
in the podcast. Celebrities who put their butts on the line,
sports teams that threw in the towel for good, forgotten fashions,
defunct diagnoses, presidential candidacies that cratered, whole countries that went caput.
(41:00):
And dragons, Yes, dragons, you see, people used to believe
the dragons were real until just get the book. You
can order Mobituaries the book from any online bookseller, or
stop by your local bookstore and look for me when
I come to your city. Tour information and lots more
at mobituaries dot com
Host
Mo Rocca
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