El Sidon Cave, Spain and The Social Contract

The twilight of theNeanderthals - Studying the many relatives in the human family tree never gets old. Constantly new finds are yielding new information about our earliest ancestors and our near cousins. Several stories recently hav revealed that there was cannibalism among Neanderthals. We had already been advised that although our near relatives, the Neanderthals, had become extinct, we all (North of sub-saharan Africa) share some of their dna, about 3 to 5 percent. People in the Phillippines share a small percentage of the dna of the other group of humans existing at the same time that we were moving across the earth, the Denisovans. The Neanderthals were throughout Europe while the Denisovans were mostly in Asia and Mongolia regions.

The finidings from the fossils of the last groups of Neanderthals that have been discovered in the El Sidon Cave in Spain is that they both interbred closely causing inbreeding genetic deformaties, and they had been killed and butchered and eaten by a rival band of Neanderthals. So Neanderthals wer practicing cannibalism. They weren't he only ones, however.

Lately several groups of fossilized remains in England and other places in Europe have revealed human fossil bones that show marks of butchering "Cut marks" and bone crushing to extract marrow, as well as the marks of teeth.

This all makes me think about htat most essential philosophical idea of civilization - the Social Contract! The beginning of laws, restraints on behavior agreed upon by all for the better of all. Hence we believe it is wrong to eat our own kind, and we also believe it is wrong to interbreed in our families, among many other taboos or laws.

NOVA (pbs) has a new series on Human origins which is well worth your time. There have been two episodes so far, the first on homo-sapiens migration out of Africa and the second on Neanderthal interactions.

By the way, a not unconnected idea about the evolution of systems is the theme of a fascinating program, also available via pbs "Particles of Thought." We are all familia with the Darwinian idea of evolution through natural selection of biological forms best adapted for their environments. The idea on the latest Particles of Thought program is about the second Arrow of Time,the evolution of systems in response to the funcitonality of the system. Societies, languages, and a variety of other systems may well exist or disappear according to the external pressures exerted on them as desribed in the latest discussion. I strongly recommend this episode!

Happy Trails, wrightj45@yahoo.com