The Caucasian child was young, just a toddler, and someone in the room was asking about a TV star. The child asked, “The one with the brown face?” There was no judgment in the question, just a point of identification. The point is that the child could recognize color differences in faces as surely as it could recognize colors in a crayon box. Not knowing the person, the child searched for a means of identification. Now tell me, given ignorance of a name or a behavior associated with a person, do you do the same? Probably, but not for someone of similar skin color. If there is no exception, there’s nothing to point out. What would you identify in an empty room of uniform color?
We’ve found out that Denisovans and Neandertals had offspring. The Max Planck Society press release of August 23, 2018, confirms the genetic finding. The leg bone of a young teenage girl found in Denisova Cave bears the genetic trace of a Neandertal mother and Denisovan father. And the father seems to have had “at least one Neandertal ancestor further back in his family tree.”*
If you are an anthropology inexpert like me, your knowledge of Neandertals is somewhat limited and filled with low-browed, wide-nosed facial images and a stooping posture. See. I just did what the child did. I picked out a feature (the face) and used it as an identifier. I made no judgment. Obviously, unless it was a matter of rape, some Denisovan guy, a very close relative of yours, found some Neandertal girl in a bar and had at least one night of abandoned willpower driven by hormones. And someone in the Denisovan’s past had done the same, maybe even his great grandmother. Apparently, as Clyde Kluckhohn pointed out in his studies, there isn’t such a thing as a pure race, especially outside Africa, and there really never was.**
Enter political correctness. I don’t have any hair on top my head. So, given that you don’t know me, what feature might you use to identify me? Should I be offended if what you say is true, “There’s a bald guy over there.” The feature is what it is. No offense taken. But enter another problem. At what level of variation do you distinguish a “brown” or “black” or “white” or some other color face? Was the girl in the Denisova Cave more Neandertal than Denisovan? Would it make a difference to you? If someone is more Hutu than Tutsi, does it make a difference? “Well,” you say, “it obviously made a difference during the genocide of the 1990s.” Yes, to Hutus and Tutsis, but if you are neither, could you tell one apart from the other?
How does that age-old definition of a species work? A species is a group that can produce fertile offspring.*** Neandertals and Denisovans appear to have done that. All humans currently on the planet have a reproductive potential that matches those ancient humans. I wonder what the girl in the Denisovan cave had to say about her “race.” I wonder whether her nose was a little wider and her brow a little more pronounced than the other people in the cave. I wonder whether or not she was ostracized because of her mother’s Neandertal genes. Or did the mother live in harmony with her in-laws as so many people of mixed backgrounds have done and continue to do?
But we still have people like Hitler and Goering arguing for “racial purity” as though they themselves lack the diversity that Clyde Kluckhohn says pervades humanity.**** How far back can you trace your ancestry? If you are of European descent, you possibly incorporate Neandertal ancestry. And for others, even into southeast Asia, it is possible that the Denisovans left their genetic mark. That means that Melanesians have continued the Denisovan biology into today.
Anyway, here’s the suggestion. At birth everyone should be given the results of a genetic test and those results should be posted over the crib, then beneath a refrigerator magnet in the kitchen, then in the first-grade classroom, and in every subsequent classroom with everyone else’s genetic background. “Oh! No!” you say. “That would be an invasion of privacy.”
Yes, it would be for a bunch of people, but it would also be a check on anyone who claims “racial purity.” Let’s have a genetic background posted online. We might also incorporate in the educational system those anthropological realities that Kluckhohn and other anthropologists and geneticists have uncovered about our common humanity. We currently live with hypocrisy in those who would arbitrarily condemn others over who they are physically. Couldn’t we try something different to diminish both that hypocrisy and the racism with which it is associated?*****
*Max Planck Society (MPG) Press Release, 23 Aug 2018, online at https://www.research-in-germany.org/news/2018/8/2018-08-23_Neandertal_mother__Denisovan_father_Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF): Research in Germany. Study by Prof. Dr. Svante Pääbo et al. of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig.
**Achenback, Joel. Study Finds Africans More Genetically Diverse Than Other Populations, Washington Post, Friday, May 1, 2009. Online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/30/AR2009043002485.html
***As Merriam-Webster defines it: “comprising related organisms or populations potentially capable of interbreeding”
****Like you, I have memories that I can’t precisely reference, including the lines Kluckhohn wrote in Mirror for Man, a book I read for a college class and the copy of which I cannot find in my library at this time. I know his point was a simple one: After years of studying the Navajo and other peoples, he had drawn the conclusion that there was no pure race. I remember his mentioning the predominance of dark-haired people in Scandinavian countries stereotypically described as lands of light-haired people. And then I think of my own children and grandchildren, all blond through childhood and some blond or light-haired into adulthood, and all but one blue/green-eyed, in spite of my brown eyes and childhood brown hair (before I lost it). Are those physical characteristics the result of my wife’s northern European and Russian background? Did I marry a Viking? We all have a tendency to generalize based on a single or few characteristics. Are there some characteristics associated with geography and genetics? Yes, probably. But the mix of humanity continues, also probably at an accelerated pace thanks to greater mobility and some breakdowns in cultural taboos. What the Denisovans and Neandertals started no doubt continued with the Neandertals and modern humans, and from then on among humans across the planet. Unfortunately, there will always be those who believe there’s irrefutable purity in their genes. Maybe a good practice would be to give a genetic heritage summation to everyone upon birth, a summation that would include Neandertal and Denisovan genes. With such knowledge of genetic diversity, could anyone claim “purity”?
***** I’m not very realistic, am I? As soon as we eliminate one distinction among humans, we’ll find another, maybe culture, religion, politics, or even athletic ventures: Are you an avid fan of curling or football? I’m not opposed to birds of a feather flocking together, but I am opposed to birds of a feather thinking all other birds are ugly ducklings.
We’ve found out that Denisovans and Neandertals had offspring. The Max Planck Society press release of August 23, 2018, confirms the genetic finding. The leg bone of a young teenage girl found in Denisova Cave bears the genetic trace of a Neandertal mother and Denisovan father. And the father seems to have had “at least one Neandertal ancestor further back in his family tree.”*
If you are an anthropology inexpert like me, your knowledge of Neandertals is somewhat limited and filled with low-browed, wide-nosed facial images and a stooping posture. See. I just did what the child did. I picked out a feature (the face) and used it as an identifier. I made no judgment. Obviously, unless it was a matter of rape, some Denisovan guy, a very close relative of yours, found some Neandertal girl in a bar and had at least one night of abandoned willpower driven by hormones. And someone in the Denisovan’s past had done the same, maybe even his great grandmother. Apparently, as Clyde Kluckhohn pointed out in his studies, there isn’t such a thing as a pure race, especially outside Africa, and there really never was.**
Enter political correctness. I don’t have any hair on top my head. So, given that you don’t know me, what feature might you use to identify me? Should I be offended if what you say is true, “There’s a bald guy over there.” The feature is what it is. No offense taken. But enter another problem. At what level of variation do you distinguish a “brown” or “black” or “white” or some other color face? Was the girl in the Denisova Cave more Neandertal than Denisovan? Would it make a difference to you? If someone is more Hutu than Tutsi, does it make a difference? “Well,” you say, “it obviously made a difference during the genocide of the 1990s.” Yes, to Hutus and Tutsis, but if you are neither, could you tell one apart from the other?
How does that age-old definition of a species work? A species is a group that can produce fertile offspring.*** Neandertals and Denisovans appear to have done that. All humans currently on the planet have a reproductive potential that matches those ancient humans. I wonder what the girl in the Denisovan cave had to say about her “race.” I wonder whether her nose was a little wider and her brow a little more pronounced than the other people in the cave. I wonder whether or not she was ostracized because of her mother’s Neandertal genes. Or did the mother live in harmony with her in-laws as so many people of mixed backgrounds have done and continue to do?
But we still have people like Hitler and Goering arguing for “racial purity” as though they themselves lack the diversity that Clyde Kluckhohn says pervades humanity.**** How far back can you trace your ancestry? If you are of European descent, you possibly incorporate Neandertal ancestry. And for others, even into southeast Asia, it is possible that the Denisovans left their genetic mark. That means that Melanesians have continued the Denisovan biology into today.
Anyway, here’s the suggestion. At birth everyone should be given the results of a genetic test and those results should be posted over the crib, then beneath a refrigerator magnet in the kitchen, then in the first-grade classroom, and in every subsequent classroom with everyone else’s genetic background. “Oh! No!” you say. “That would be an invasion of privacy.”
Yes, it would be for a bunch of people, but it would also be a check on anyone who claims “racial purity.” Let’s have a genetic background posted online. We might also incorporate in the educational system those anthropological realities that Kluckhohn and other anthropologists and geneticists have uncovered about our common humanity. We currently live with hypocrisy in those who would arbitrarily condemn others over who they are physically. Couldn’t we try something different to diminish both that hypocrisy and the racism with which it is associated?*****
*Max Planck Society (MPG) Press Release, 23 Aug 2018, online at https://www.research-in-germany.org/news/2018/8/2018-08-23_Neandertal_mother__Denisovan_father_Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF): Research in Germany. Study by Prof. Dr. Svante Pääbo et al. of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig.
**Achenback, Joel. Study Finds Africans More Genetically Diverse Than Other Populations, Washington Post, Friday, May 1, 2009. Online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/30/AR2009043002485.html
***As Merriam-Webster defines it: “comprising related organisms or populations potentially capable of interbreeding”
****Like you, I have memories that I can’t precisely reference, including the lines Kluckhohn wrote in Mirror for Man, a book I read for a college class and the copy of which I cannot find in my library at this time. I know his point was a simple one: After years of studying the Navajo and other peoples, he had drawn the conclusion that there was no pure race. I remember his mentioning the predominance of dark-haired people in Scandinavian countries stereotypically described as lands of light-haired people. And then I think of my own children and grandchildren, all blond through childhood and some blond or light-haired into adulthood, and all but one blue/green-eyed, in spite of my brown eyes and childhood brown hair (before I lost it). Are those physical characteristics the result of my wife’s northern European and Russian background? Did I marry a Viking? We all have a tendency to generalize based on a single or few characteristics. Are there some characteristics associated with geography and genetics? Yes, probably. But the mix of humanity continues, also probably at an accelerated pace thanks to greater mobility and some breakdowns in cultural taboos. What the Denisovans and Neandertals started no doubt continued with the Neandertals and modern humans, and from then on among humans across the planet. Unfortunately, there will always be those who believe there’s irrefutable purity in their genes. Maybe a good practice would be to give a genetic heritage summation to everyone upon birth, a summation that would include Neandertal and Denisovan genes. With such knowledge of genetic diversity, could anyone claim “purity”?
***** I’m not very realistic, am I? As soon as we eliminate one distinction among humans, we’ll find another, maybe culture, religion, politics, or even athletic ventures: Are you an avid fan of curling or football? I’m not opposed to birds of a feather flocking together, but I am opposed to birds of a feather thinking all other birds are ugly ducklings.
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