"...our picture of them has
become less blurry." - NY Times
Tantalizing fragments from a bone
or footprint of Neanderthal will show
we overlapped, and they were not alone.
But then they vanished. Maybe they were slow
to find a fitting mate, though we had interbred,
our genomes show. Their larger skulls and ridges
of their brows did not survive that bed
of kissing cousins or invent those 'fridges
and appliances the human claims
as evolution's goal. Their life, bucolic
idylls, ended. No one ever blames
the mix: since different ducks still love to f . . . frolic.
They dined on brains, and vanished without fuss,
murdered by their puny cousins: us.
A response . . .
Yes, the last of them died out in Spain,
the plains we call Iberia. You see,
they co-existed with the human strain;
their genomes fertilized our family tree.
The records show them handy with the axe
and spear, and prone to use as decoration
shells, but hygiene was severely lax.
And did they think Neanderthals a nation?
They spoke, but could they shop at stores,
invent the iPod, count their calories
(they needed more of those as carnivores
than we), or spend beyond their salaries?
The sex was great – awhile – and drew some raves.
But Condos are far nicer than their caves.