Neanderthals - the Debate

Neanderthals and humans, perhaps they never met?

This is the kind of interesting scientific debate that goes on under the surface of pop culture because it lacks any obvious political spin value (though these guys will no doubt have an entertaining perspective if they get around to it).

To me there is nothing preposterous about either position, and I look forward to the evidence vindicating one side or the either (or neither).

That said, if Neaderthals and humans were contemporaneous, then there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that some interbreeding took place.

Why? Simply put, because Larry Flynt lost his virginity to a chicken (which, when you think about it, explains perhaps too much).

And given that the outer limits of human sexuality must include barn fowl, it seems to me a total certainty that a 'Quest-for-Fire' human male with his primitive standards for things like hygiene, and the hirsuteness of his women, would find even the lowliest of horny neanderthal trollop a more attractive option than Flynt found his chicken.

A few drinks, the exchange of small talk grunts, a large club (probably the femur from a large herbivore), and the next thing you know, interbreeding.

And am I the only one who finds it appealing to think that something of the neanderthal lives on in us? Something old and heavy stuck in the grains of our fabric, never quite cleaned out of the wash?