Neanderthal

When I was 11, we went on a field trip to the Neanderthal.   It was a hot summer day, and our teacher intended to tire us out with a wholesome hike through the woods before taking us to the museum.  I remember two things:  dragging myself through the woods, thirsty and sweating, each of my limbs heavy with what I now suspect was the onset of hormone surges and a tiny white museum that was dull as dust.  So when my cousin Ike suggested the Neanderthal for our  traditional Sunday afternoon excursion, I was not expecting much.  Even after her husband, Bernie, informed me that the museum had been remodeled twice since I was there in 1965.  

I was blown away.  The museum had not only tripled in size, its displays had grown both awesome and awe-inspiring.  Now that we know Neanderthals mixed with Homo Sapiens ( Ron has just had his DNA tested through the National Geographic Genome Project - here’s the link in case you haven’t heard of it - and found out he has 3% Neanderthal DNA), they seem less like monsters and more like distant relatives.  Displays remind us of the time scale of human development and how rapid the shifts have been since humans settled down.  I loved a large suspended box with holes cut into the bottom that invited us to stick our heads up into the dark.  Once there, I was surrounded by shifting projections of cave paintings, punctuated by occasional images of camp fires.  Then there was a series of identical squares, each representing different dates from prehistory to the present.  Each square had individual figures proportional to population.  The Ice Age one had three people on it, and they stayed pretty sparse until the current one which had them packed in and hanging off the edge. 

Another lesson was political history - the shift from egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies, to settled societies that grow more hierarchical as they grow more complex, and the idea that contemporary democracies are experiments trying to reintroduce egalitarian elements.  When I read 1491,  I first learned that Europeans,  used to rigid hierarchy, were amazed by the relatively egalitarian Native Americans they encountered, and took that paradigm shift home to serve as the germ of democracy.  Zing. Connection made.

After all that mental stimulation, we had to restore ourselves the traditional German Sunday afternoon way.  Coffee and cake at the restaurant next door. Mit Sahne - with whipped cream, of course.  The sun even cooperated.