Cavemen

Discussion in 'BOARDANIA' started by Garner, Feb 14, 2009.

  1. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    So, top of the news on Wikipedia today is that someone's managed to sequence the neanderthal genome. They included a picture of a reconstructed neanderthal child.

    Have a look at it here: File:Neanderthal child.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Now, i dunno about the rest of you, and admittedly I come from the south... but I could swear this guy used to sit next to me in third grade.
  2. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    Awwwwwww! He could be a Hastings kid!
  3. Maljonic Administrator

    They just got a normal kid and waxed him up to look prehistoric. It's a Doug McClure special.
  4. Garner Great God and Founding Father

  5. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    Yes! In fact, I think I might have seen him down the Anchor.
  6. Maljonic Administrator

    That one looks like a tramp who they've stolen all the clothes from.
  7. mowgli New Member

  8. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    ...

    Yeah, if you knew the kind of assholes I went to school with...

    But I do find it a bit curious, we got the National Geographic issue that had that woman on the cover (man their centerfolds have taken a dive since i was a kid), and I thought that clearly showed some divergent features. The reconstructed man in my second link, while not looking exactly typical, still wouldn't cause me to question my eyes if I saw someone like that on the street. As Mal says, he just kind of looks like a tramp. booze and exposure can do a number on your face.

    But that kid? I mean, he's a cross between this kid I knew named Rhett and the Gelfling from Dark Crystal. call it an 80/20 split. Now, while I could easily say Rhett had a lot of throw-back qualities, I'm reasonably certain he was human. and yet, as Grace says, he looks like a Hastings kid.

    I was talking to a neighbour of mine the other day, a guy who has a strong interest in the pre Christian cultures of Britain, and he was saying how the geographical isolation of the hastings region actually sheltered it to a large degree from the full force of the roman invasion and germanic migrations. We know that the Romans were here, because there's evidence of an iron foundry up on the ridge, and a bath house not too far from there. I'm not sure what evidence we have for germanic migration peoples occupying the region, but I'd be quite surprised if there wasn't any. The Norman conquest seems to have completely ignored the town aside from a certain scuffle of no real importance. And anyway, their attention seems to have focused on Battle and Bexhil-on-Sea more than Hastings. So, despite all this potential mongrelization of England, there's still a 'Hastings' type. there are those who argue the region still strong roots and links to pre-roman Brythonic/Goidellic celtic peoples.

    if nothing else, we show a highly disproportionate number of redheads in the area. Heinlein said that redheads tend to crop up in clusters, both geographically and historologically, but i dunno how much evidence he really had to back that up. and all this new stuff about the neanderthals, we get lots of back and forth bickering about whether or not there could have been any interbreeding... but we can at least agree they were largely copper tops. so i dunno. am I living in a town which should be home to "the Hastings look" a'la 'The Shadow over Innsmouth'? or are redheads just clearly genetically inferrior and they all look funny, which is why the egyptians used to sacrifice them.

    these are the mysteries of our times, man.
  9. mowgli New Member

    "The Shadow over Hastings"... mwahaha! How's your secret underwater empire doing, Garner?

    I didn't know Egyptians used to sacrificed redheads. Instead, I read that they pioneered the concept of using henna to color their hair. Maybe the sacrifice was an honor! :tongue:

    I also remember reading "The Three Musketeers", and how D'Artagnan was always derided for having a "Gascogne face". So my guess is that, back in the day, when Europeans just kinda stuck to their respective villages and didn't move around much, every area eventually developed a certain "look", much to their neighbors' amusement. Because when YOUR villagers all look the same, it's all cool and patriotic, whereas when your neighbors all share a face, it's because they're a bunch of in-breds!
  10. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    The name Hastings is thought to be taken from the name of the Haestingas, an Anglo-Saxon group, who settled nearby.
  11. spiky Bar Wench

    Well all the bloke needs is white hair and he's Santa... Although I'd be watching out too if someone looking like that came down the chimney.
  12. Maljonic Administrator

    Ramesses II was a redhead.
  13. TamyraMcG Active Member

    Wasn't Ghengis Khan a red head too, and Alexander the Great?
  14. Katcal I Aten't French !

    And Jesus, and Ming the merciless, and the little guy they found at Roswell, but the government is Hushing It All Up...
  15. Hsing Moderator

    The little bloke looks cute... really cute. He looks like my nephew in law did when he was nine. He could definitely be a relative of my husband - even regardless of the red hair connection. Maybe it's true that all redheads carry some neander genes? This was being quoted a lot at me since I got together with one (especially by one guy who was trying to express his dissapoinment over my choice in a somewhat funny way; I used to reply that Neanderthalers are said to have been a relatively gentle people, less agressive than their modern human counterparts).
    I'm looking forward to the results of the recent research after the DNA has been decoded.
  16. Pepster New Member

    They never get the eyes right do they, that picture has a uncanny valley aspect to it.
  17. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    I dunno, i don't think it quite hits uncanny valley, for me the skin is a little too... something other than realistic. it's clearly a model rather than a person.

    now, if you want uncanny valley, go for ron mueck. Ron Mueck - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    the photos don't do his work justice. i walked into a room where Mask II was on display, and damn near shat myself.
  18. Pepster New Member

    It is probably quite a subjective thing, that Ron Mueck art is disturbing.

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