You Neanderthal you!
Week 36 of 2024 questions my inclusivity…
To see how Sam Pepys spent this week 364 years ago, follow this link.
Most of this week was spent preparing for a talk I’d give on Friday to hundreds of Coram Beanstalk’s reading support volunteers for schools. But it began – ironically, it’d turn out – with me editing my current novel-in-progress to incorporate the latest evidence surrounding the history of human imagination.
Imagination is humanity’s specialism. We have no way of knowing whether other animals can go beyond basic tool invention and pattern replication – whether they can also form concepts in their minds which transcend time, place, and occasionally also reality. But we sure know its what humans do best. While we’re not as fast, strong, or long-lasting as nature, our imaginations let us build things which surpass it.
For years, I’ve pointed to how the imagination underpins multiple traits that help us survive and thrive, such as ambition and problem-solving. I’ve found children readily grasp this concept too, especially when told of the moment in evolution when humans developed imagination.
At that moment in time (c.40k years ago), all cavepeople had much in common: tools, clothes, even fire. Humans, though, are the only ones we know took time to hone their imaginations.
Others, such as neanderthals, have left us with hand prints, sequential lines, even knots. But humans were the first to create recognisable representations of creatures. Moreover, they then mixed them up, creating things that didn’t exist – like a human with a lion’s head.
When the Ice Age forced various species into extinction – including neanderthals – it was humans’ adaptability which kept them alive longer than tools, clothes, even fire. And scientists like Yuval Harari argue that this adaptability was powered by imagination.
That said, there’s also evidence that humans had a very intimate relationship with other cavepeople, including neanderthals. In Europe, up to 2% of our DNA is believed to be inherited from neanderthals. So we obviously got on with them, and have preserved their bloodline – albeit imperceptibly.
To represent this in my novel, I introduced a neanderthal character who happily shares a home with some primitive humans. But his inability to imagine things the way they do eventually frustrates him into leaving, allowing me to show the distinction between the humans who survived and the cavepeople who didn’t.
Of course, I didn’t share any of my novel-in-progress with Coram Beanstalk. There, I shared a shorter, simpler story, based on the American folk tale of ‘The Little Red Hen’ – except replacing the hen with a human, and all the other animals with various cavepeople: neanderthals, denisovans, and floresiensies.
Again, I’ve found this to be the quickest way to get across the importance of imagination: in the end, humans survive because of their ability to imagine things that don’t yet exist (in this case, bread); the others, stuck in their ways of bopping animals with clubs, perish.
At Coram, the story was received with rapture, and let us effortlessly segue into ways we can sharpen the imaginations of ourselves and the children in our care.
At least, so I thought…
Afterwards, while I spoke with some volunteers over lunch, one lady approached with some advice:
“You need to be more inclusive of neanderthals. They are not extinct – you share DNA with them. Your story is divisive because it encourages children to be prejudiced.”
She spoke passionately, and she had clearly read at least some of the same research as me. But she swiftly silenced my observation that chickens supposedly inherited a little DNA from dinosaurs, yet they are quite a different species. To her, chickens are dinosaurs, just as humans are neanderthals.
At the time, it didn’t occur to me to mention the plot of my novel-in-progress. Nor did I think to mention my second published children’s book, Who Made England, in which inclusion is the central theme.
Instead, I got defensive, insisting that the aim of my story had been to quickly and simply convey the importance of imagination to humanity, and there wasn’t space to introduce the complexity of our early relationship with neanderthals.
She just slammed that argument, though, urging me to find a way to be more inclusive with my storytelling.
Having always believed myself to be a passionate standard bearer for inclusion, her criticism hit me hard, and it sat at the forefront of my mind for quite a while afterward. Could I possibly emphasise the significance of imagination in our survival as a species without making our neanderthal cousins look inadequate?
The next day, though, Mummy Rose and I attended a family gathering. Everyone there was related to her father in some way, making most of them my cousins, but it soon struck me that pretty much all of us had brought someone new into our family. As a result, there was a great variety among us: investors, carers, mechanics, houseparents, writers, restaurateurs…
In times past, such a mix of ‘tribes’ would’ve been unheard of. Now, our empathy as a species is growing, and that’s another imagination-empowered trait: imagining yourself in the position of others.
Once, humans probably would’ve exploited their superior imaginations to dominate other cavepeople. Nowadays, there are more and more like that volunteer at Coram who view neanderthals through the eyes of compassion.
More, I am now comfortable to point out, like myself, who already has a novel treating neanderthals with this same sympathetic stance.
Still, I have more space to do so in a novel. Since it’s the imagination that’s enabled modern humans to reflect on their ancestral relationships in the first place, I shall not change the short story I shared at Coram.
I tell many other stories to promote inclusion. But in that one, inclusion would distract from the principle message: the evolutionary significance of the imagination. Neanderthals may come out looking slightly foolish in comparison, but my reasoning makes me comfortable with that.
98% comfortable, anyway…
Do you think it’s important to be inclusive towards neanderthals when sharing the significance of imagination to human evolution? If yes, how would you do it?
I’d love to discuss your thoughts with you, so please shoot me a reply. $:-)
Weekly Productivity Score: 54%
– but hey, that’s ‘coz I took some time out to spend time with family. $;-)
Quarterly Best: 74%
Annual Best: 74%
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Do you think it’s important to be inclusive towards neanderthals when sharing the significance of imagination to human evolution? If yes, how would you do it?