I have bought a book Today.
Nothing perhaps new in this. Although I have always been an avid reader and a collector of books, these days my disability means that I cannot hold nor turn the pages of a book, and my limited sight makes substantive reading problematic.
It is ironic to me that I can read more easily using my computer. Ironic because I suppose I am rather old-fashioned when it comes to books, I prefer the touch and smell of paper, over and above the simple fact of their content.
But the book that I bought this morning online is what I would consider a special book. I once owned a copy of it, but I think it was one of those occasions when I lent it enthusiastically to someone, and never received it back.
The copy I have purchased is a signed first edition, not terribly expensive, and in any case I believe there was only one edition originally printed and published.
It is a book that I have already read, in effect. I will probably scan many of the pages, so that I can read them more easily at my leisure.
New technology does have its advantages when it comes to assistive technology, as indeed I have found for some time with the use of voice-activated software, so that I am able to type faster and more accurately than ever I could.
The book is entitled Cities Of Dreams, the author Stan Gooch. When it was first published in 1989, it would have been considered both radical and highly contentious, in that it proposes that Neanderthals,more than simply close humans, are in fact more than simply close relatives, but have in fact shared some of their genetic material with modern humans.
The title of the book is an important insight into some of what the author proposes, in that Neanderthal culture has not survived through artefacts and objects, simply because their development, quite different to that of modern humans, who it is often supposed helped in their extinction, was through means that we would consider to have been not physical, but through an oral or ritual culture, one that has not survived in any physical form.
What is known, from archaeological evidence, is that they buried their dead, and that they constructed or collected objects that had no practical utility for them.
Skulls have been found with evidence of vegetables constituting part of their diet, contrary to early suppositions that they were carnivorous and principally bestial in lifestyle.
Graves have been found with evidence of flowers being an accompaniment for the dead, and the use of red ochre seems to have been a symbolic means of connecting life and death, birth and death.
One of the suggestions that Stan Gooch makes in the book is that there are some physical characteristics which can be identified as revealing Neanderthal ancestry, and since I have identified in myself one of these characteristics, it seems likely that I might be a candidate for someone that does in fact exhibit what I have inherited in my genetic makeup.
According to Wikipedia, between one and 4% of the population share some genetic inheritance from the ancient intermingling of modern human with Neanderthal.
Further, it seems that the mitochondrial DNA, communicated through the female line, does not contain any of this shared genetic material.
The implication of which is that female Neanderthals that were impregnated by modern humans did not bear children, and perhaps it is only female Neanderthals that were fertile on sexual contact with modern humans.
From my limited understanding of genetic inheritance, it seems that through the mitochondrial DNA, it can be elicited that we all share the DNA of six ancient females, six Eves if you like.
It seems that little will come of my supposed ancestry.
But I am certainly not embarrassed at the idea that I might contain some tiny inheritance from this source.
Quite the contrary. Everything I know about modern humans tells me that what we think of as being civilized, often leaves out something of great significance, those things which cannot be created from a material culture.
The characteristic that I have talked about but not mentioned is simply that in my feet, my big toe and the toe next to it, whereas in a typical modern human the big toe will be longer than its neighbour, in my feet it is the reverse, my second toe is longer than my big toe.
Whenever I have asked friends or carers to remove their socks and examine their feet, this characteristic of mine has not been present.
Clearly, not conclusive, but at least perhaps indicative.
It would be interesting if anyone reading this blog might undertake the same simple examination, and let me know what the outcome is, particularly if they share the same genetic characteristic.
For perhaps it means that we are more closely related than might have seemed to be the case.
Another strange statistic that I discovered by listening to an episode of QI on BBC recently was that Neanderthals have spent at least four times as long in Europe as modern humans.
So it follows that Europe belongs to us, assuming that I discover anyone else that shares this same genetic characteristic.
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