Every Once In A Blue Moon The New Yorker Actually Hits

My family has a high percentage of genetic Neanderthal ancestry. I think about my Neanderthal ancestors in passing.

I do hold a bit of grief that I will never know them, or our Neanderthal culture, or what happened. I will never know or understand their funeral rights. And I will never be able to honor them in a way they would appreciate.

Neanderthals only became extinct from earth a mere 40,000 years ago. But there’s new science that just dropped this week that our hybrid offspring existed and lived alongside Homosapien for much longer:

The dating of the Lapedo Child thus expands the debate on the extent and duration of human-Neanderthal interactions. Genetic evidence suggests interbreeding began at least 49,000 years ago and continued for roughly 7,000 years. However, if the Lapedo Child, a hybrid individual, lived around 28,000 years ago, then questions arise as to whether genetic exchanges lasted longer than previously thought or whether hybrid traits appeared in later generations. March 7, 2025 Archeology Mag

Some of us from the East have Denisovian genetics. They became extinct only 25,000 years ago, I believe.

Compared to all of humanoid existence— being alone as the sole humanoid species is the anomaly.

All of time and history up until modern history Homo Sapiens shared our earth. But as far as I understand, we have no modern cultural memory or history of our interactions. Only through our modern science and forensics do we attempt to piece together our real humanoid history.

Now we look to the stars and ask why are we all alone on this planet?

And I can’t help but conclude the same as you: We are alone because at some point…we decided to be the only humanoids.

the level of neanderthal ancestry in modern humans suggests they were destroyed by horny invaders

From what i read the replacement didn't even have to be particularly violent, there were just not that many of them to begin with in comparison to homosapiens.