The So-Called Missing Link

By GEORGE STAHL

Finally! An explanation for why we are the way we are today!  It’s not a generational thing. Not some, “Oh my look at those millennials!” thing. It’s not an age thing, and is not a brain disfunction thing. It’s an interbreeding thing! Oh, my gee willikers! No! Not where there is an entire town in which everyone is related and most of them are first generation kinfolk. That’s not even close. No, for this inbreeding beginning we need to go on an ancestry.com sort of journey going back 47,000 years. 

Now, that’s a really long time ago, and you ask, ‘How can this be? How can the result of something so long ago be with us today? I’m almost glad you asked that. Let’s see. 47,000 years ago, there were not just one human species, but two? There were the neanderthal, and the homo sapiens. All of this is according to scientist who spend their lives studying these types of things like the lives of 47,000-year-old dead people. What they have discovered in various undisclosed and double talk ways is that the brute of our species, the neanderthal frequently and for and extended period of time, 7,000 years or so, interbreed with our homo sapiens sisters and brothers. Shocker, that one! How was a small, petite, attractive and fairly unintelligent homo sapien women supposed to stave off the advances of a huge, hairy beast like man such as a neanderthal? Unsuccessfully apparently. According to experts, this interbreeding went on for 7,000 years! That is a long time to act surprised every time a neanderthal wanted to get jiggy with a homo sapien.  

It may have started out as an unwanted surprise, but as those 7,000 years went by, don’t you think some evolving was going on? The females had to be getting tired of neanderthal hubby coming home from a hard day of gathering in the hot prehistoric Arizona sun, grunting for dinner, grunting for some me time, and then like clockwork grunting for whatever else. As time went on, these women demanded more. They wanted a life, children and a home.  White picket fences around the cave, and a wildcat in the yard. The women who were the first to fall for the smooth grunt talking of the beastie boys were long gone. The generations who were fresh and looking as if they may be the last of the lucky ones who would get the benefits of a hunter gatherer saw the proverbial handwriting on the cave wall. The new batch of brutes had evolved into a more vicious and meaner bunch. 7,000 years of no formal education will do that to a species. There was more and more muscle flexing going on between the villages. Clans were uniting against other clans. Remember, these bang on your chest for laughs kinda guys are the end result of nearly 280 generations of really bad genes. Their time is coming to a close and the current ancestral woman of the age are wanting out. So, they begin going back to their homo sapien roots for refuge. 

As you can imagine, this did not sit well with the neanderthal population. These offspring of grunters didn’t want to let their women go. Especially to a group of inferior homosapiens. So, in true warrior style, they followed the women and found the places where the homosapiens lived and like their predecessors, they confronted the weaker sapiens and began a night of clubbing. In the aftermath, to the surprise of everyone, especially the neanderthals, the superior intellect of the sapiens prevailed and the women were accepted into the tribes. A little too late, the genetic damage had all ready been done. Unbeknownst to the women who escaped the Morlocks, genetic upheaval had been accomplished. Any off spring these women would come complete with a dysfunctional, anti-social, relationship challenged and overall skewed outlook on life as a whole. 

Then, whenever someone asks, “How did we get so messed up?” You, being all caught up in the only truthful explanation of our place on the evolutionary timeline, can step up and yell out, “7,000 years of inbreeding!” Someone is bound to ask you to explain your outburst. Simply repeat, “We are why and who we are today due to 7,000 years of inbreeding, that took place 47,000 years ago!” Could this be the so-called missing link?