Neanderthals and Zermatism

It’s starting to seem like we (humans) were doing the nasty with Neanderthals for millenia:

Modern humans and Neanderthals co-existed in Europe 10 times longer than previously thought, a study suggests.

The most comprehensive dating of Neanderthal bones and tools ever carried out suggests that the two species lived side-by-side for up to 5,000 years.

Every time I hear about this I get freaked out, because I’m a little familiar with the crazy theories of Stanislaus Szukalski.

Szukalski was a brilliant Polish artist in the 1900s, specializing in amazing sculptures (you can see some of them here). Here’s a sample for the clickthrough-challenged:

He was a serious student of the human body, by which I mean he studied the proportions and features of everybody he saw. Somewhere along the line he came to the following conclusion. There are two types of humans: one “normal,” and one whose ancestors have crossbred with Yeti. He arrived at this conclusion simply by looking at things like arm, leg, and torso length, skull structure, and the size and shape of the abdomen.

He attributed most of the evils of the world to the ape-human (a-human in his terminology) hybrids, who he felt were subjugating pure humans via war and violence. Very wacky, no?

So the revelation that there may be Neanderthal genes running around in our population is a surprising confirmation of his “fringe” theory (just substitute “Neanderthal” for “Yeti”). And then there’s this:

Researchers have discovered evidence that many modern afflictions, such as addiction to smoking, depression, and diabetes are linked to early humans interbreeding with Neanderthals hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Sounds like the Neanderthals were our Pandora’s Box.

If you’re curious about his theories, you can look up “Zermatism” and “Behold the Protong.”