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An archeological discovery prompts a discussion

By Ed Goldman

I’m not proud of this. When I learned last week from a news story that homo sapiens and Neanderthals not only co-existed on the planet a million-and-a-half years ago but also intermarried, my first thought was: Matt Gaetz explained!

Yes, of course I’m ashamed—but not for the reason you may be thinking. What I’m sorry for is that I unintentionally dissed the Neanderthals. 

I mean, these were the people who gave us tools and may have been the first to use fire to cook. Gaetz, on the other hand, has made only one significant contribution to our culture: a renewed relevance for the old admonition, “Lock up your daughters!”

When I mentioned to a few of my paleontologist pals that I was fascinated by the idea that Neanderthals and homo sapiens sometimes got married, one of the researchers sent me an unsettling communique. She claims to be a distant cousin of famed anthropologist Margaret Mead­—“My favorite Girl Scouts cookies are Samoans, need I say more?” she declared. Her X account is #Mead Too!

“You do realize,” she wrote,  “that if they inter-married it was usually preceded by inter-dating, right?” 

The Setting: A cave in a gentrifying suburb, circa 1.5 million years ago. It’s Friday around 7 p.m. even though calendars and clocks have yet to be invented. The cave’s owners are Mildred and Harold “Biff” Margolin, a married couple approaching their twilight years (she’s 28; he’s 30). Their daughter, Tessa, is 11. Certified homo sapiens, they await the arrival of Tessa’s Neanderthal date, Gregg Gronk.

“I’m not sure I approve of this cultural mish-mashing,” says Biff. Wearing a woolly-mammoth cardigan sweater, he’s holding a large slab of slate in his lap, hoping that it’ll evolve into the Wall Street Journal any millennium now. His reasoning is that walls already exist so how much longer until streets do?

“Oh, darling, do keep an open mind,” Mildred says as she dusts the cave using a live dodo bird, which keeps sneezing. (There was a lot more dust back then, owing to asteroid and meteor strikes. This is an actual fact that snuck in. As for the sneezing dodo bird, this column asks: Could it have been allergies that rendered them extinct?)  “After all,” Mildred continues, “Gregg comes from a very good family. The Gronks even use utensils to eat.”

“What’s wrong with using their hands?” asks Biff, and not necessarily rhetorically. “They worked fine for my folks and your folks. All this damned modernity.”

“Maybe their knuckles are too scraped from generations of using them as walkers,” Mildred suggests perkily. “Why, just the other day, I was saying to Wilma Flin–“

But a loud knock at the cave entrance, which jars loose more dust for Mildred and her dodo to deal with, interrupts her. 

Biff drops his slab on the cave floor (more dust!) and climbs out of his La-Z-Boy Sandstone Sarsen® model to greet the visitor. At the entrance he finds Gregg Gronk, who’s 12 yet appears to be older due to his facial, neck and arm hair. But it’s his unibrow that Biff finds especially off-putting. (As he’ll confide to Mildred once the kids have left on their date, “I could never tell if he was frowning or being ironic.”)

Introductions are made as Tessa now makes her debutante-like entrance, emerging from a dark corner of the cave and resplendent in a dress made of tree bark, leaves and the pelt of a tragically lethargic mastodon, accessorized by a necklace consisting of a slightly woozy dwarf goby (reportedly, the oldest and smallest fish in history, or maybe pre-history. Our sources made no distinction).

Gregg Gronk’s unibrow rises. “Tessa,” he moans, “Gregg am, like, gob-smacked.”

Grammar can’t get here fast enough, Biff thinks. But then, because Neanderthals have been exposed to more human communication, Gregg continues: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”