2022-01-29

Reconsidering our Neanderthal ancestry 160 to 45,000 years ago

Weekly radio show, On The Media (OTM), https://www.npr.org/podcasts/452538775/on-the-media

January 28, 2022 - Humans, Being

When you hear the word "Neanderthal," you probably picture a mindless, clumsy brute. It's often used as an insult — even by our president, who last year called anti-maskers "Neanderthals." But what if we have more in common with our ancestral cousins than we think? On this week's On the Media, hear how these early humans have been unfairly maligned in science and in popular culture.

1. John Hawks [@johnhawks], professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, on our biological family tree—and the complicated branch that is Neanderthals. Listen.

2. Rebecca Wragg Sykes [@LeMoustier], archeologist and author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, on and what we know about how they lived. Listen.

3. Clive Finlayson [@CliveFinlayson], Director, Chief Scientist, and Curator of the Gibraltar National Museum, on how studying what's inside Gorham and Vanguard caves can help reconstruct Neanderthal life beyond them. Listen.

4. Angela Saini, science journalist, on how Neanderthals have been co-opted to push mythologies about the genetic basis of race.

2022-01-13

Exhibit "Race: are we so different?" now online thanks to Google-Arts/culture initiative

Little by little the google form of spreading access to collections and displays grows each year.