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Speaker 1: During the earliest days of this millennium, I took part

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Speaker 1: in the Kind of History series, an ambitious survey that

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Speaker 1: explored milestones in American culture decade by decade. Of course

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about and after. I loved the eighties there

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Speaker 1: was and really who could forget? What made Dynasty wick

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Speaker 1: was the campfights. Yeah, he went from John Cougar to

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Speaker 1: John Cougar Mellencamp and I thought, did he get married?

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Speaker 2: John Travolta's asked Urban Cowboy is that there should be

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Speaker 2: a shrine built too.

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Speaker 1: It was a classy show featuring a panoply of commentators,

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Speaker 1: and I was one of them, pondering complex topics like

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties hospit dramas.

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Speaker 3: Saying elsewhere.

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Speaker 1: It was an hour long drama. It starred Mark Harman

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Speaker 1: as doctor Bobby Caldwell. Comedian and actor Michael Ian Black

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Speaker 1: was another contributor.

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Speaker 2: I thought, if anything, the title That's Incredible was an

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Speaker 2: understatement of how incredible the things on That's Incredible were.

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Speaker 1: We didn't really know each other back then, but I

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Speaker 1: distinctly remember his take on the nineteen eighty one Neanderthal

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Speaker 1: epic Quest for Fire. While most of us were obsessed

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Speaker 1: with the film's nudity. Michael took the high road.

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Speaker 2: I was really looking at it more from an anthropological

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Speaker 2: point of view than to see Raydon Jones.

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Speaker 1: Tataz And it's that prehistory that's our subject to this episode.

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Speaker 1: Since Quest for Fire, we've learned some stunning truths about Neanderthals,

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Speaker 1: and I knew who. I wanted to discuss this topic

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Speaker 1: with my friend Michael ian Black back when we were

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Speaker 1: loving the eighties. Neither of us knew just how connected

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Speaker 1: he is to our human cousins of four thousand decades ago.

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Speaker 2: If they had told me only how much Neanderthal I am,

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Speaker 2: I would have paid twice the amount for the test.

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Speaker 1: I'm Morocca. And this is mobituaries, This mobid Neanderthals circa

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Speaker 1: forty thousand years ago. Death of a human species. Okay, first,

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Speaker 1: let's take care of some basics. The name Neanderthal comes

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Speaker 1: from the neander Valley in Germany, where one of the

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Speaker 1: first Neanderthal skulls was found in eighteen fifty six. At

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Speaker 1: the time, the fossil was misidentified as the skull of

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Speaker 1: a Cossack soldier from the Napoleonic Wars. They were only

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Speaker 1: off by a few tens of thousands of years now.

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Speaker 1: Neanderthals were also human, but a separate species Homo sapiens.

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Speaker 1: That's us and Neanderthals did share a common ancestor over

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Speaker 1: half a million years ago. Homo sapiens would go on

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Speaker 1: to flourish in Africa, while Neanderthals roamed across Europe and Asia,

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Speaker 1: adapting to a colder, harsher climate. Eventually the two species

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Speaker 1: did meet up. Then, about thirty to forty thousand years ago,

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Speaker 1: Neanderthals disappeared without a trace, or so we thought, which

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Speaker 1: brings me to my guest, Michael Ian Black. So, Michael

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Speaker 1: Ian Black, thank you so much for joining me for

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Speaker 1: this whole episode.

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Speaker 2: My pleasure.

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Speaker 1: Let's get the promotion out of the way first, because

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Speaker 1: it's deserved. Your podcast, How to Be Amazing is amazing.

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Speaker 2: Yes, you can be on it, mo, Yes, that's where

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Speaker 2: I was going.

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Speaker 1: So years ago I interviewed you about your one of

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Speaker 1: your books, Naval Gazing, and in it you talked about

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Speaker 1: genetic testing and why did you go about investigating your

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Speaker 1: genetic makeup?

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Speaker 2: I think the same reason most people do, just curiosity.

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Speaker 2: I just wanted to know genetically speaking who I am.

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Speaker 2: I had it in my head that I must be

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Speaker 2: at least a pastiche of things, some kind of milange.

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Speaker 2: I was hoping to find some African American, some Native American,

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Speaker 2: but the results were so disappointingly kind of exactly what

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Speaker 2: I had been led to believe, which is that I

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Speaker 2: am a one hundred percent Ashkanazi Jew.

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Speaker 1: I do think the food is better than Sephardic food.

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Speaker 2: Delicious, delicious if you just take the gefilter fish out

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Speaker 2: of that which I have always associated and will always

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Speaker 2: associate with just jellied cat turns.

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Speaker 1: But you say you found out you were one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent Ashkanazi Jew, But that's not quite right.

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Speaker 2: Well, it is in terms of ethicity, But there was

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Speaker 2: also a which I didn't know till I got it

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Speaker 2: back from the company, that says it will also tell

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Speaker 2: you your Neanderthal percentages. If they had told me only

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Speaker 2: how much Neanderthal I am, I would have paid twice

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Speaker 2: the amount for the test, because for some reason, that

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Speaker 2: just really captured my imagination to think, oh, I may

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Speaker 2: be part of an entirely different species. That was thrilling

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Speaker 2: to me. And I didn't know that they had developed

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Speaker 2: the test, and I found out that I am two

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Speaker 2: point nine percent Neanderthal, which is greater than the norm.

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Speaker 2: The average is a two point seven percent.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that's a significant difference.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I can't tell you how delighted I was

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Speaker 2: to hear this, because your listeners can't see me, but

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Speaker 2: you can probably tell by the way I speak and

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Speaker 2: the timber of my voice that I am not the

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Speaker 2: most masculine of fellows.

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Speaker 4: But I.

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Speaker 1: Mean, I mean, I'm tolerant, but to a point.

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Speaker 2: But just the popular image of the Neanderthal as a

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Speaker 2: lumbering brute, as this strong survivor out on the steps

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Speaker 2: in planes just thrilled me to no end. And so

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Speaker 2: I was delighted. And I told my wife that I

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Speaker 2: am above averagely Neanderthal, and she said, that's why you

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Speaker 2: look like that, and she did not mean it as

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Speaker 2: a compliment.

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Speaker 1: And let me just say that Martha is highly evolved.

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Speaker 1: She's basically Daryl Hannah and Clana the cave bear. I mean,

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Speaker 1: a highly evalved, leggy blonde.

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Speaker 2: Yes she is.

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Speaker 1: But wait, wait, hold on. When you describe Neanderthals as

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Speaker 1: masculine lumbering brutes, you're making certain assumptions and we'll dispel

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Speaker 1: some of these in this episode. For instance, how do

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Speaker 1: we know there weren't cultured episcene Neanderthals.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think we do know, now you are doing

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Speaker 2: the research, and I'm just speaking off the top of

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Speaker 2: my head. Now they were kindessurs of fine wine. Is

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Speaker 2: my understanding. They did puppet shows.

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Speaker 1: Oh, Michael, we've got some work to do. Think of

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Speaker 1: me as your Henry Lewis Gates and this is finding

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Speaker 1: your roots, or as Lisa Caudreaux and this is who

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Speaker 1: do you think you are? I think that's her show.

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Speaker 1: I want you to know that your Neanderthal ancestors were

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Speaker 1: pretty darn special and not as different from us normal

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Speaker 1: people as you may think. So how did they get

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Speaker 1: such a bad rap? Let's find out. I grew up

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Speaker 1: with so many classic TV shows and films about Neanderthals

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Speaker 1: and cavemen, and they pretty much all got it wrong.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty one, there was the aforementioned Quest for Fire.

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Speaker 1: The characters basically just plump through the whole movie, except

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Speaker 1: when one of them gets beamed in the head by

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Speaker 1: a rock and then everyone laughs. That same year, moviegoers

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Speaker 1: were subjected to the Ringo Star vehicle caveman Bobo Bobo.

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Speaker 1: During the course of the movie, a bunch of bumbling

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Speaker 1: cavemen discover fire, how to light farts on fire, and

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Speaker 1: jam bands and who could forget the mel blank voiced

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Speaker 1: cartoon character. But as far as portrayals of the primordial

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Speaker 1: go the show that had the biggest impact on me

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Speaker 1: was Land of the Lost. The theme song told the

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Speaker 1: story of the series. It's about a family on a

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Speaker 1: river rafting trip. During the ride, they go down a

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Speaker 1: magical waterfall and enter a universe filled with dinosaurs and

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Speaker 1: cave creatures.

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Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Phil Paley and I played Chaka on the

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Speaker 3: seventies show Land of the Lost.

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Speaker 1: You were only nine years old when he got this role.

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Speaker 1: Tell us about the character.

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Speaker 3: Chaka was the youngest of the Pakuni clan. What do

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Speaker 3: you think he is.

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Speaker 1: I'm kind of a Cayman, a monkey or what Chakkaka.

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Speaker 3: I wore a prosthetic head piece, so it had a

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Speaker 3: very prominent brow and forehead, so it did kind of

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Speaker 3: look neanderthal ish.

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Speaker 1: I guess back when I watched the show, I kind

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Speaker 1: of assumed Chaka was a Neanderthal, But looking back at

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Speaker 1: the clips now he seems more monkey boy free all over,

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Speaker 1: except for his face.

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Speaker 3: The suit was made out of like nylon pantihose material

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Speaker 3: with a real human hair hands sewn into it, so

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Speaker 3: it made it kind of itchy.

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Speaker 1: Luckily, there are some people who know the difference between

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Speaker 1: Saturday morning science fiction and real science.

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Speaker 5: Anything that depicts Neanderthals as basically bad hair, that's what

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Speaker 5: I laugh about.

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Speaker 1: Professor John Hawks from the University of Wisconsin at eau

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Speaker 1: Claire is one of the world's leading experts on Neanderthals.

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Speaker 1: Why have Neanderthals had such a bad reputation.

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Speaker 5: The Neanderthals are a group that doesn't have an advocacy.

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Speaker 5: They don't have a lobby. You know, there's there's not

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Speaker 5: Neanderthal representatives calling their congressmen and so as a consequence,

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Speaker 5: if you thought something bad about the past, you know,

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Speaker 5: they were a convenient group because they weren't going to complain.

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Speaker 3: It's so easy to use Geico dot com. A caveman

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Speaker 3: could do it.

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Speaker 4: What.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, I'm not cool.

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Speaker 6: I did not know you were there.

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Speaker 1: The Neanderthals in those Geico commercials might be funny, but

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Speaker 1: make no mistake, we're laughing at them. So how did

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Speaker 1: this stereotyping of me Anderthals as a brutish, howling and

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Speaker 1: stupid get started. John Hawkes says it may have begun

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Speaker 1: with a nineteenth century German biologist named Ernst Heckel, who

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Speaker 1: attempted to map a genealogical tree of all living things.

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Speaker 1: When he came to early versions of us, he had

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Speaker 1: no fossils to study. It was pretty much just guesswork.

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Speaker 1: He chose a rather insulting classification.

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Speaker 5: The name that he had for the predecessor of humans

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Speaker 5: that would be the Neanderthals basically was Homo's stupidness.

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Speaker 1: Yes, Homo's stupidness, But it was the French who really

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Speaker 1: gave Neanderthals a bad name. In nineteen oh eight, a

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Speaker 1: nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton was found in a cave in

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Speaker 1: the town of La Chapelle au Saine. Paleontologist Marcel Bull

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Speaker 1: analyzed the remains of this individual and made sweeping and

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Speaker 1: hugely influential assumptions about the entire species.

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Speaker 4: The image that came out of his work was hairy

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Speaker 4: and pretty ape like, with displayed toes and a slouching,

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Speaker 4: hunched posture.

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Speaker 1: Kate Wong is a writer for Scientific American, And what.

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Speaker 4: Researchers later determined was that this was an older individual,

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Speaker 4: this Neanderthal, who had suffered from severe arthritis. So all

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Speaker 4: of the sort of features that led Bull to assume

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Speaker 4: that the species had these slouched, stooped traits were actually

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Speaker 4: the result of disease.

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Speaker 2: That is really hilarious to me, isn't it wild? And

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Speaker 2: I've wondered about that before, Like, when you find an

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Speaker 2: individual species of something, what if you're finding a weird

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Speaker 2: member of that species and it turns out that's exactly

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Speaker 2: what happened with the Neanderthals.

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Speaker 1: Totally an agreement of fascinating and hilarious. But hold on,

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Speaker 1: there's more. The old Man of La Chappelle, as he

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Speaker 1: came to be known, became the public's picture of neanders

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Speaker 1: for generations.

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Speaker 7: They were the archetypal cave people, and that image, unfortunate,

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Speaker 7: has stuck with the Neanderthals over one hundred years later.

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Speaker 1: Professor Chris Stringer, the research leader at the Natural History

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Speaker 1: Museum in London, tells me part of the problem was

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Speaker 1: that in the early twentieth century we didn't understand how

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Speaker 1: evolution worked.

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Speaker 7: There was this rather simplistic idea that they would be

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Speaker 7: missing links to be found in the story of human evolution.

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Speaker 1: And it was because we were so fixated on the

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Speaker 1: idea of a missing link that we typecast Neanderthals into

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Speaker 1: the role of a half ape, half human caveman lah

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Speaker 1: atuk lor. But thanks to the rapid advancement and the

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Speaker 1: study of archaic humans, the image of the Neanderthal is

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Speaker 1: finally changing. To be sure, Neanderthals were different from us

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Speaker 1: in appearance. The pronounced brow ridge and sloping forehead in

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Speaker 1: those Geico commercials weren't tramped up by making up artists.

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Speaker 7: So our brain case shape is rather globular, sometimes described

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Speaker 7: as like a sockaball. The Neanderthal cranial shape was longer

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Speaker 7: and lower.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the Neanderthal brain was bigger than ours, as

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Speaker 1: was the Neanderthal schnarz.

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Speaker 7: We guess that the whole nose would have been broader.

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Speaker 7: They certainly seem to have had a nose that was

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Speaker 7: capable of very very heavy breathing. It may also have

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Speaker 7: served a function of warming up and humidifying the air

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Speaker 7: when they were living in relatively colder and drier conditions.

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Speaker 1: They were stockier too, with rib cages that flared out

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Speaker 1: and shorter limbs better for conserving heat. But recent studies

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Speaker 1: on the Neanderthal thorax suggest that they might have walked

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Speaker 1: even more upright than we do. As for what they

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Speaker 1: sounded like, Neanderthal voices might have been higher pitched than ours.

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Speaker 1: Listen to this simulation from the BBC.

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Speaker 4: Let's just add a bit of nasal, now.

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Speaker 2: Push into me.

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Speaker 4: This is actually getting him right into his body, now speak.

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Speaker 1: No, that isn't a monty bygone sketch. It's a serious demonstration.

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Speaker 1: But aside from the physical, what's really surprising is how

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Speaker 1: on par Neanderthals were with us cognitively and creatively.

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Speaker 4: They made a lot of the same kinds of tools

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Speaker 4: they had fire, They decorated their bodies with jewelry made

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Speaker 4: from shells, eagle talons, animal teeth, all sorts of fabulous accouterment.

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Speaker 5: Some of these discoveries of them using feathers systematically and

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Speaker 5: collecting predominantly the feathers of very dark black birds. We

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Speaker 5: talk about it as Neanderthal goth because it seems like

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Speaker 5: they preferred these dark raptors and dark crows and ravens

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Speaker 5: and that sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: Some scientists speculate that underthals saw power in these dark

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Speaker 1: birds and thought they'd be imbued with that power if

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Speaker 1: they wore those feathers. And if you're picturing share in

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Speaker 1: bob ackeye at the nineteen eighty six oscars, I am too.

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Speaker 1: And within just the past few years researchers found the

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Speaker 1: first ever Neanderthal cave paintings and etchings, which reveal inn

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Speaker 1: early interest in social media.

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Speaker 5: There's a great place in Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar that

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Speaker 5: has this what we call the Neanderthal hashtag because it

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Speaker 5: looks like that pound sign that is scratched onto the

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Speaker 5: floor of the cave. What it means, what it meant

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Speaker 5: to them, we have no idea, but it shows us

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Speaker 5: some sign from the past that these were thinking beings.

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Speaker 5: They were conveying something through their use of markings, through

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Speaker 5: the use of ornaments, and that something was social. It

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Speaker 5: was something about what they had to say to other individuals,

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Speaker 5: what they had to communicate about themselves.

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Speaker 1: And when it came to hunting, Neanderthals were pretty crafty.

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Speaker 1: To attach tips to their spears, they made their own glue.

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Speaker 5: In order to do that, you have to take birch

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Speaker 5: bark and smoke it down, reduce it at high temperature

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Speaker 5: so that the sap inside of it condenses into the

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Speaker 5: sticky pitch, and that in the end makes a very

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Speaker 5: very tiny amount of this. So you've got to do

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Speaker 5: this many times to concentrate it. Neanderthals managed that process.

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Speaker 5: If I had to assign an engineering class to figure

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Speaker 5: out how this was done, they would have a hard

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Speaker 5: time of it.

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Speaker 1: All to say that Neanderthals weren't the least bit stupidous,

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Speaker 1: and neither was Chaka. And the Pecuni had a language.

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Speaker 3: It was developed by a UCLA language professor by the

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Speaker 3: name of Victoria Frompkin.

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Speaker 1: After all these years, Philip Paley can still say some

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Speaker 1: phrases in Paku.

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Speaker 3: Well, these are classic ones. Mangou sarisa taka and that

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Speaker 3: means beware of sleestak.

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Speaker 1: With an important warning.

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Speaker 3: Very and uh, there's also oh gunza bisasa what does

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Speaker 3: that mean? Big magic?

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Speaker 1: I love? Who doesn't love big magic? We're back with

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Speaker 1: Michele and Black talking about what it really means to

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Speaker 1: be Neanderthal.

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Speaker 2: But I mean they were capable of language that we

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Speaker 2: learned that right, right, But I thought you were just belging. No, No,

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Speaker 2: I was just grunting in the Neanderthal Neanderthal like way.

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Speaker 1: We should have done that at the top of the episode.

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Speaker 1: So there are two different ways to do it. I

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Speaker 1: like saying Neanderthal. There are some people that will say

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Speaker 1: neander Tal. So you are welcome. You can go back

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Speaker 1: and forth. You can switch over to Neanderthal if you want.

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Speaker 2: I am now forever more going to pronounce it neander Tall.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so that's this scud. We're going to do a

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Speaker 1: split on this, and I'm going to stick with Neanderthal.

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Speaker 1: You stick with meandertall, and then everybody will be satisfied. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Did you like Land of the Loss?

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Speaker 2: Loved it. There were these uh sid and Marty Croft shows,

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Speaker 2: and in my memory, that was the only tolerable one, Right,

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Speaker 2: I loved it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I'm older than you are, so when I watched it,

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Speaker 1: I could tell it was pretty cheaply done. But I

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Speaker 1: like the opening credits. That's what I like because it

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Speaker 1: just seemed really exciting.

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Speaker 2: Uh yeah, to me, there was nothing cheap about it.

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Speaker 2: It was as real as real.

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Speaker 1: Gets rewatching a little bit of Captain Caveman that cartoon,

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Speaker 1: I remember that I was kind of attracted to Captain Caveman.

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Speaker 1: I just there was something. Maybe it was I don't

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Speaker 1: know anyway, And now would I go back and look

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Speaker 1: at it. I think it's kind of weird because he

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Speaker 1: looks like a testicle basically.

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Speaker 2: Well, then that explains your attraction.

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Speaker 7: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: So so, Michael. Now that we've established that Neanderthals were

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Speaker 1: intelligent and surprisingly similar to modern humans, that raises the

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Speaker 1: question why did Neanderthals go extinct? Now there are various

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Speaker 1: theories on this. First up, Professor Michael Stabwasser from the

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Speaker 1: University of Cologne in Germany.

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Speaker 6: My specialty is a subject called isotope geochemistry.

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Speaker 2: Oh, he's got my old position. That's what I did before.

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Speaker 1: Exactly Is this awkward for you?

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Speaker 7: No?

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Speaker 1: No, no, okay, I mean you know, so I asked

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Speaker 1: him what he actually does. It's almost like you're a

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Speaker 1: weatherman for the ancient times.

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Speaker 6: Yes, you could say that.

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Speaker 1: Yes, he didn't really like that line, as it could

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Speaker 1: tell anyway. He thinks it's climate change that did in

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Speaker 1: the Neanderthals. By studying stalagmites in caves, he determined that

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Speaker 1: during their last fifty thousand years on Earth, the average

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Speaker 1: temperature in the Danube Valley, one of the places where

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Speaker 1: Neanderthals lived, was much colder than it is now. It

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Speaker 1: was about thirty nine degrees fahrenheit. But and this is crucial,

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Speaker 1: during that period there were these cold snaps that would

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Speaker 1: ultimately seal their fate.

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Speaker 6: They lasted something between a century and a millennium on average.

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Speaker 6: They usually led to temperature jobs which could be up

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Speaker 6: to let's say, six to eight degrees today. It may

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Speaker 6: not sound drastic, but it makes the difference between being

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Speaker 6: able to grow crops or not.

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Speaker 1: And if you can't eat, you're going to die.

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Speaker 6: And then as climate recovered, modern humans basically resettled an

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Speaker 6: empty area more or less.

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Speaker 1: So he isn't saying that modern humans were better adapted

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Speaker 1: to these cold temperatures than the Neanderthals. I think the

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Speaker 1: point he's making is that the extinction of Neanderthals was

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Speaker 1: pretty much bad timing, wrong place, wrong time.

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Speaker 2: But they had existed for millennia up until this point

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Speaker 2: in the average temperature as it's going down could have

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Speaker 2: forced them south into warmer climates, but it seems like

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Speaker 2: it didn't do that.

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Speaker 1: I know, I don't know why.

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Speaker 2: This feels like a very.

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Speaker 1: Dumb theory, which is why we have another theory for

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Speaker 1: you on why me Anderthals died off.

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Speaker 2: Okay, good.

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Speaker 1: You remember Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum in London.

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Speaker 1: He thinks the small population of Neanderthals was essentially swallowed

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Speaker 1: up by modern humans. Some experts estimate that at tops

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Speaker 1: there were only about fifty thousand Neanderthals spread all across

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Speaker 1: the Eurasia. There just weren't that many of them.

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Speaker 7: The Neanderthals were relatively low in numbers, and I think

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Speaker 7: that it probably wouldn't have taken much to push them

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Speaker 7: over the edge to extinction, and maybe the appearance of

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Speaker 7: modern humans as a competitor was sufficient to do that.

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Speaker 7: But of course that's just a guess.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well that sound that just sounds like the most

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Speaker 2: likely explanation. There was a sharknado of humans that came

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Speaker 2: in and just wiped them out. I mean, we have

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Speaker 2: a habit of doing that. That's kind of what we do.

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Speaker 1: It's who we are. But who we are isn't who

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Speaker 1: we used to think we are. Of course, Neanderthals aren't

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Speaker 1: really gone. They live in you, Michael and so many others.

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Speaker 1: Let's find out what that means today. What does it

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Speaker 1: mean to have within our genetic code a certain percentage

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Speaker 1: of Neanderthal DNA? I wanted to find out, so I'm

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Speaker 1: heading to New Jersey to talk to one of the

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Speaker 1: foremost experts in the field.

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Speaker 8: My name is josh Aiky and I'm a professor in

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Speaker 8: the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in the Lewis

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Speaker 8: Zigler Institute for integrit Genomics at Princeton University.

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Speaker 1: And you did that all in one breath.

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Speaker 2: With twenty three and meters, you can discover where in

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Speaker 2: the world your DNA comes from.

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Speaker 1: An unforgettable gift. My heritage DNA order your kid.

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Speaker 2: At AncestryDNA dot com.

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Speaker 1: I spoke to Professor Ake about what these DNA kits

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Speaker 1: can tell us. It's one thing to find out that

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Speaker 1: from one of these mail order things that you're ten

401
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Speaker 1: percent Irish, ten percent Mediterranean, you know, five percent African.

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Speaker 1: But to find out that your two point five percent Neanderthal,

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Speaker 1: that's a whole other level of self discovery.

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Speaker 8: We've always said that our genomes are a mosaic of

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Speaker 8: different ancestors, and I think what we've learned more recently

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Speaker 8: is it's a mosaic of both recent ancestors and very

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Speaker 8: distantly related different types of human ancestors.

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Speaker 1: Before we could get to know what Neanderthal DNA looked like,

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Speaker 1: we had to truly understand our own DNA.

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Speaker 7: More than a thousand researchers across six nations have.

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Speaker 4: Revealed nearly all three billion letters of our miraculous code.

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Speaker 1: That was President Bill Clinton back in the year two

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Speaker 1: thousand announcing the first time the human genome was sequenced.

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Speaker 1: Then in two thousand and six, Swedish scientist Savante Papa

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Speaker 1: and his team embarked upon sequencing the Neanderthal genome in

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Speaker 1: a positively Jurassic Parkian way.

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Speaker 8: They were able to isolate ancient DNA directly from a

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Speaker 8: Neanderthal femur bone. So they drill into the long bone

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Speaker 8: and to a whole bunch of cleanup procedures to try

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Speaker 8: to make sure that you're just getting Neanderthal DNA.

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Speaker 1: All from this femur bone. Amazing. Once we sequenced the

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Speaker 1: Neanderthal genome, we were able to recognize that we have

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Speaker 1: what is called archaic DNA within our own genes, and

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Speaker 1: this bombshell told us a lot about what Neanderthals and

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Speaker 1: modern humans were doing with one another about forty to

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand years ago.

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Speaker 2: Oh.

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Speaker 8: It's been interestingly one of the most hotly contested issues

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Speaker 8: in science for thirty years, with people arguing either there

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Speaker 8: was admixture that happened between Neanderthals and modern humans or

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Speaker 8: there wasn't.

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Speaker 1: He's talking about sex, and recent studies suggest that they

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Speaker 1: add mixed a lot. Okay, So where did the modern

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Speaker 1: humans in the Neanderthals end up hooking up?

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Speaker 8: That's a great question and something we still don't know precisely.

436
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 8: It seems to make most sense that the initial rounds

437
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 8: of hybridization happened shortly after modern humans dispersed out of Africa.

438
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 1: So maybe an Asia minor like in Turkey, Levante, of

439
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 1: like in Syria and Jordan. Okay, so it was a

440
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 1: Middle Eastern that's where they got together.

441
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:48,640
Speaker 8: That's yes.

442
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 1: And I can't help but imagine it. I mean in

443
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 1: kind of a literal way. I mean fifty thousand years ago,

444
00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 1: modern humans coming out of Africa and meeting a group

445
00:26:57,480 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 1: of Neanderthals.

446
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:00,560
Speaker 8: Yeah, and what was that interaction, like, what was that

447
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:01,440
Speaker 8: interaction with it?

448
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:05,640
Speaker 1: Did the modern human guy walk over to the female

449
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:10,080
Speaker 1: Neanderthal and were they saying like, stop, no, don't do it,

450
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:13,679
Speaker 1: She's not our kind. There's so much we don't know,

451
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:17,160
Speaker 1: but we're learning more every day thanks to Professor Aikey

452
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:19,720
Speaker 1: and his team. He took me on a tour of

453
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 1: their facility.

454
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:25,199
Speaker 8: So we're going to go look at the experimental and

455
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,639
Speaker 8: computational space in the Lewis Sigler Institute. You had to

456
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:31,959
Speaker 8: wear air in at No, we're not going to be baking,

457
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 8: but don't touch anything, okay, mostly for your s So

458
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 8: these are my graduate students pretending like they're working. This

459
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 8: is mor nice to meet you. A thesis project is

460
00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:53,920
Speaker 8: on understanding how Neanderthal sequence is distributed across the human genome.

461
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:58,160
Speaker 1: When you walk down the street, do you ever sort

462
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 1: of wonder the knee underthal content of different people.

463
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 9: I'm actually really good at picking that out just by

464
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 9: looking at you.

465
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, how much Neanderthal do you think is in me?

466
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 2: Brush back your hair a little bit.

467
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 9: I think you're about one percent.

468
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 1: Okay, So my friend Mike Liam Black is two point

469
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 1: nine percent Neanderthal. He's an exceptional case. It's amazing. Had

470
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:25,160
Speaker 1: a picture. Wait, let me just show you a picture

471
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 1: of that. Look at that, Look at him.

472
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:31,159
Speaker 9: Yeah, I can definitely see yeah, because he's got a

473
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 9: small chin, and Neanderthals are known for being relatively chinless,

474
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:37,680
Speaker 9: which is why I think you're lower, because you have

475
00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:38,520
Speaker 9: a nice, strong chin.

476
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:39,040
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you.

477
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:42,920
Speaker 9: And he also has this sort of backward sloping foreheads,

478
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 9: which is also very Yeah, what were referred to as

479
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 9: like archaic.

480
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 2: I don't feel like I have a very weak chin.

481
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 2: I don't have a weak don't have a clapped esque chin.

482
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 2: I've never felt the need to beard myself.

483
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:00,800
Speaker 1: You objectively do not have a weak chin.

484
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 2: But I do have a reverse sloping forehead. He was

485
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 2: right about that, But so does Roger Stone. And he's gorgeous.

486
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 1: All right, all right, one out of two. Let's get

487
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 1: back to the best. After meeting with grad student Aaron,

488
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: Professor Age set the record straight. Just because someone has

489
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 1: a lot of Neanderthal DNA doesn't mean his or her

490
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 1: physical appearance will reflect this.

491
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 8: One of the dirty secrets still about genetics is that

492
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 8: we are not very good at interpreting DNA sequence variation.

493
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 1: So if I look at my friend Michael and I

494
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: see certain features that may look like a rendering of

495
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:41,240
Speaker 1: a Neanderthal. That's just a coincidence.

496
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 8: It is most likely just a coincidence.

497
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: Most like you're leaving a little bit of room there.

498
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 8: We can never say things with one hundred percent certainty

499
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 8: and science.

500
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:50,320
Speaker 1: That's hysterical.

501
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:52,239
Speaker 8: All right, let's go downstairs because that's where the fun

502
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 8: toys are.

503
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: This feels like the movie Coma, Remember Coma.

504
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 8: This is an alumina H twenty five hundred instruments. So

505
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 8: this is one of the class of next generation sequencers.

506
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 8: You don't have to have large, intact fragments of DNA.

507
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 8: You can sequence from the small degraded fragments that most

508
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 8: Neanderthal ancient DNA exists in because it degrades over time

509
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 8: and you can sequence a lot of it.

510
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 1: Knowing what we do about Neanderthal DNA put the science

511
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 1: fiction part of my brain in full geek out mode.

512
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: In our lifetime, will we be able to see, you know,

513
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 1: kind of a living, breathing Neanderthal that's created in a lab.

514
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:40,959
Speaker 8: The technology to do so arguably exists today.

515
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 1: You can have like a version of Sturbridge Village or Williamsburg, Virginia,

516
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 1: just a town with all Neanderthals, building tools and grunting

517
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: at each other.

518
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 8: I think it will ultimately be decided that that's an

519
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:55,400
Speaker 8: unethical thing to do. You know what, good just because

520
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 8: you can do something doesn't mean you should do something.

521
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 1: But what does that Neanderthal DNA mean for us today?

522
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 1: According to Professor Aik, one of the benefits modern humans

523
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: got from mating with Neanderthals was it improved their immune systems.

524
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 8: It was a very efficient way for our ancestors to

525
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 8: quickly adapt to these new conditions was to have sex

526
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 8: with the Neanderthals and just pick up a few beneficial

527
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 8: genes from Neanderthals.

528
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 1: Great, okay, but you don't get the benefits just from

529
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 1: the sacks of your kids, will get it?

530
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:26,640
Speaker 8: Yes, yeah, it's a persistent benefit.

531
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 2: I almost never get sick, per the Neanderthal thing. Yes,

532
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 2: almost never. I can't remember the last time I was sick.

533
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 1: Wow, and you have kids and I had.

534
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 2: Kids and the whole thing. I never get the flu,

535
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 2: I never get colds. I never really get anything.

536
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 1: That is interesting. But wait, there's more to the benefits

537
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 1: of having Neanderthal DNA.

538
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 8: There are a few genes that are clearly important in

539
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 8: early formation of skin, like keratin, proteins.

540
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:55,160
Speaker 1: Neanderthals had nice nails.

541
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 8: Perhaps it was nice nails, our hair.

542
00:31:57,920 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 2: My nails I think are fine.

543
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like, thanks, don't think me yet. Your Neanderthal

544
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 1: DNA does have some downsides. It may play a factoring depression,

545
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:09,880
Speaker 1: and it may have something to do with chain smoking.

546
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 8: It just so happens that this sequence now influences your

547
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 8: ability to stop smoking.

548
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 2: Okay, never smoked.

549
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 1: It's a good thing you've never smoked, because you fined

550
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 1: it harder to quit.

551
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:24,120
Speaker 2: I may just take up the habit just to see

552
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 2: if it's right right, just to test this proposition.

553
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 1: One of the most mind blowing things the field of

554
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 1: archaic genomics hasn't covered is that modern humans and Neanderthals

555
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 1: weren't the only people around.

556
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 8: Thirty thousand years ago. Forty thousand years ago, we walked

557
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 8: around the Earth, we'd find modern humans Neanderthals. Denisovans that

558
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 8: if we went to the island of Flores, we'd see

559
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 8: the hobbit individuals. So there was hobbits Homo florencias, so

560
00:32:55,680 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 8: very small, diminutive archaic human types. So the world was

561
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:04,360
Speaker 8: a much more interesting place fifty thousand years ago and

562
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 8: today the only remnants that we see of these archaic

563
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:12,320
Speaker 8: forms of humans are the scattered remains of their DNA

564
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 8: and the genomes of modern individuals.

565
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 1: I may not only have Neanderthal DNA. I may have Denisovan, hobbit,

566
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:27,120
Speaker 1: or who knows what. So I decided to take a test.

567
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 1: Do you know one thing about myself? I wonder if

568
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 1: my caveman ancestors were any better at opening packages? A

569
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:43,400
Speaker 1: saliva collection kept and right, no food or drink for

570
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 1: thirty minutes. Okay, spit to fill mine all right, here

571
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 1: we go. Oh god, that's a lot of spit. Twenty

572
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:56,800
Speaker 1: minutes later, my cup runneth over with saliva. I have

573
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: to say this is bringing out a little bit of

574
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 1: my competitive tendency. I'm a little jealous that Michael is

575
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: so neanderthal and uh and I don't know. We'll see

576
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 1: time to see who's the neanderthalist of them all. And

577
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:16,120
Speaker 1: so I actually have the result.

578
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 2: I looked yet, but you haven't looked.

579
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 1: I have not looked. So I as you heard, I

580
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:23,919
Speaker 1: spit in an envelope and sent it in and I'm

581
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:26,759
Speaker 1: going to look. Now. Your DNA tells a story of

582
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:29,799
Speaker 1: who you are and how you're connected to populations, trace

583
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:33,719
Speaker 1: your heritage through the Century's an un covered Cleo one

584
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 1: hundred percent.

585
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:36,000
Speaker 2: What does that mean, Cleo?

586
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: Yeah? What is Cleo? Gideon?

587
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:41,399
Speaker 9: Hey, Moe, Remember you were a little nervous about using

588
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 9: your real name.

589
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 2: I use the name of my cat.

590
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 1: Oh that's the name of Gideon's cat. Is Cleo.

591
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 2: I'm one hundred percent Khalio.

592
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:56,919
Speaker 1: It was like so week.

593
00:34:57,200 --> 00:34:59,280
Speaker 2: I thought maybe it meant, oh, you've got one hundred

594
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 2: percent of a mark for some disease that's going to

595
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 2: kill you.

596
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 1: Oh, the Cleo disease. Okay, all right, it's already says

597
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:11,840
Speaker 1: our ancestry composition. Your DNA suggests your ancestry is forty

598
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 1: point eight percent Iberian with ties to five other populations.

599
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: And I'm going to view report. Wow, some over forty

600
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: percent Spanish, okay, which is kind of sexy.

601
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:23,399
Speaker 2: And did you know that?

602
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 1: Well, my mother's Colombian. Okay, so thirty point two percent

603
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:33,720
Speaker 1: Italian Italy, I'm point three percent Ashkenazi Jewish?

604
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:35,760
Speaker 2: Are you yes, welcome?

605
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:40,000
Speaker 1: I It's interesting because a cab driver the other day

606
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 1: as said, are you Jewish?

607
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 2: Said to you, are you Jewish?

608
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 1: Yeah?

609
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 2: And now you can answer in the affirmative. Hell, yes,

610
00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:48,320
Speaker 2: I am, Hell.

611
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: Yes, Okay, I'm three point five percent East Asian and

612
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 1: Native American.

613
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 2: That's what I was looking for. Oh my god, I

614
00:35:56,120 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 2: have it.

615
00:35:56,680 --> 00:36:00,720
Speaker 1: Congrats, Thank you, God, don't be jealous. Okay, two point

616
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 1: seven percent Native American, Colombia, Venezuela plus three more goubab

617
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:10,440
Speaker 1: Brasil and Maica. That's great. I'm so excited. So where

618
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 1: do I find my Neanderthal?

619
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 2: It was on a separate tab as far as I recall.

620
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:18,720
Speaker 1: So it looks like I have only only two hundred

621
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:24,120
Speaker 1: and thirty six Neanderthal variants, which puts me in the

622
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:26,680
Speaker 1: bottom eleven percent in terms of Neanderthal content.

623
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:30,600
Speaker 2: Well, it sounds like that researcher was right that you

624
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:34,800
Speaker 2: have less Neanderthal than the average person. If you have

625
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:37,440
Speaker 2: less than eighty nine percent of twenty three and meter customers,

626
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:40,399
Speaker 2: that suggests to me you don't have very much at all.

627
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:43,800
Speaker 1: Right, I guess that's what it means anyway. So okay,

628
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 1: so we can conclude I have virtually no Neanderthal hence

629
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 1: are different pronunciations of Neanderthal.

630
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 2: Yes, but you do have a real s'mortisboard of all

631
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 2: everything that I wanted, so I wouldn't say it's a tie.

632
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 2: I would say you're slightly ahead in the genetic lottery.

633
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 1: You said Asmargus board, But I have no Northern Europeans,

634
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:06,279
Speaker 1: so that's why we should what would be something more?

635
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:16,520
Speaker 1: Payea much? I love it so much. Well, mich Leean Black,

636
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:19,719
Speaker 1: I want to thank you, but you should really be

637
00:37:19,840 --> 00:37:22,799
Speaker 1: thanking me because this was about finding your roots since

638
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 1: I'm basically zero percent Neanderthal.

639
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. I mean I really feel like I

640
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:30,799
Speaker 2: learned a lot about myself, about my family. I now

641
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:35,040
Speaker 2: know more about you and simultaneously think less of you

642
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:39,080
Speaker 2: because you are not of my species. But yeah, this

643
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:39,720
Speaker 2: was a blast.

644
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:46,720
Speaker 1: Before we close, a word from the University of Wisconsin's

645
00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 1: John Hawkes on his predecessors in Neanderthal research, those people

646
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,960
Speaker 1: whose early analysis set the stage for how Neanderthals were

647
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:57,360
Speaker 1: seen for so long.

648
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:01,319
Speaker 5: When we look at the scientific world of the Victorian era,

649
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 5: you're looking at people who became aware of human variation

650
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 5: around the world, but they interpreted it in a very

651
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 5: culturally insensitive way. You look at the past and think,

652
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 5: oh my gosh, I can't believe that they said that,

653
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 5: But that was the way that they approached their science.

654
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:23,359
Speaker 5: Today we look at things totally differently, and when we

655
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 5: look at extinct human groups, they had their own ways

656
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,479
Speaker 5: of living in the world. You have to appreciate they're

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Speaker 5: not us, but they lived at a time with incredible

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Speaker 5: challenges and they overcame those challenges, and that is something

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Speaker 5: really fundamentally similar that we share.

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Speaker 1: With them today. We're all experts. I mean, we can

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Speaker 1: just spit in an envelope and get all the answers right.

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Speaker 1: Far from it. Let's all hope that science and technology

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Speaker 1: will allow us, one day to understand why a species

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Speaker 1: of humans as advance anst as the Neanderthals, disappeared from

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Speaker 1: the planet, so that maybe, just maybe we don't disappear,

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Speaker 1: at least not before our next episode of Mobituaries featuring

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Speaker 1: the incomparable Sammy Davis Junior. I certainly hope you enjoyed

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Speaker 1: this episode and if you would, please rate and review

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Speaker 1: our podcast. You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram,

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00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:37,359
Speaker 1: and you can follow me on Twitter at Morocca tell

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00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:40,919
Speaker 1: me how Neanderthal you are. For more great content, please

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Speaker 1: visit mobituaries dot com. You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever

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00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:49,320
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. This episode of Mobituaries was produced

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Speaker 1: by Gideon Evans. Our team of producers also includes Megan Marcus,

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00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:58,240
Speaker 1: Kate mccaulliff, Megan Detri and me Moroka. It was edited

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00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 1: by David Fox and in neared by Dan de Zula.

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Speaker 1: Indispensable support from Justin had Genius, Deneski, Kira Wardlow, Zach Gilcrest,

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Speaker 1: the team at CBS News Radio, and Richard Rarer. Our

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Speaker 1: theme music is written by Daniel Hart. Special thanks to

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00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 1: Gary Perdue, Minora Sistiaga and London's Natural History Museum, and

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00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:25,480
Speaker 1: as always, undying thanks to Rand Morrison and John Carp

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Speaker 1: without whom Mobituaries couldn't live. Hi, It's mo. If you're

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Speaker 1: enjoying Mobituaries the podcast, may I invite you to check

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Speaker 1: out Mobituaries the book. It's chock full of stories not

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Speaker 1: in the podcast. Celebrities who put their butts on the line,

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00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 1: sports teams that threw in the towel for good, forgotten fashions,

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00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:59,880
Speaker 1: defunct diagnoses, presidential candidacies that cratered, whole countries that went caput.

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Speaker 1: And dragons, Yes, dragons, you see, people used to believe

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Speaker 1: the dragons were real until just get the book. You

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00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 1: can order Mobituaries the book from any online bookseller, or

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00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:13,919
Speaker 1: stop by your local bookstore and look for me when

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00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:17,000
Speaker 1: I come to your city. Tour information and lots more

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Speaker 1: at mobituaries dot com