Uneasy Relations Read Online Free PDF

“That’s—”
    “A five-hundred-yard stroll, and you’re at Casemates Square in the town center. An extremely interesting history there, by the way . . .”
    Julie quietly sighed, closed her eyes, and settled back.
    For the next half hour they circled, Vanderwater eventually running out of things on which to elucidate (not something that happened every day) and Julie running out of attention span, not in that order.
    “Gideon,” she said quietly, when there had been a welcome silence from behind them for a few minutes, followed by what sounded suspiciously like a soft, tranquil snore, “I wanted to ask you something about this whole mixing-theory thing.”
    “Ha. I knew you weren’t really awake at the Bella Italia. You were faking it.”
    “No, I was paying strict attention. This is something you didn’t talk about. I get the impression that you don’t really buy into the admixture-theory idea.”
    “Oh, it’s not that I don’t buy into it. Humans and Neanderthals coexisted in the same area for several thousand years, after all, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the occasional particularly cute human babe caught the eye of some horny Neanderthal caveman, or vice versa. Genetically, there really doesn’t seem to be that much difference between us. But I’m not about to jump on the bandwagon and declare it to one and all as Revealed Truth. I mean, there’s not that much difference between us and chimps either, but I haven’t heard of any hot romances lately, have you? Not that I’m definitively on the other side either. There are still plenty of uncertainties.”
    “But you’re the one who did that analysis on the skeletons.”
    “Well, one of the team, yes. Don’t forget, there were Lyle and Harvey too.”
    “Don’t be modest. You were the senior author of the paper. And if the child is a hybrid between the humans and—”
    “That’s the issue, Julie. We never used the term
hybrid
. We just described what we found.”
    “You weaseled, in other words.”
    “Precisely.” He laughed. “Well, no, not that I haven’t been known to weasel when the situation demanded it, but in this case the data just didn’t warrant anything more conclusive See, most of the differences between Neanderthal and human skeletons are really quantitative, not qualitative. Oh, there are some specific, pretty minor distinctions — Neanderthal jawbones have this space behind their molars, the retromolar gap, that we don’t have, and there’s a difference in the shape of the mandibular foramen — but essentially, we’re talking about matters of scale.”
    “The Neanderthals were bigger? More rugged?”
    “Not bigger overall, no. They did have thicker bones, bigger brow ridges, bigger occipital buns; but we have bigger chins, bigger foreheads. And there are differences in the relative proportions of long-bone lengths. It’s that kind of thing. So, sure, we all can agree that such and such an adult skeleton is Neanderthal, and another one is human, but when it comes to somebody like the First Kid, Gibraltar Boy, he’s still a child; you’re dealing with traits that haven’t yet reached their adult form. He looks a little like both. So, yes, he might be a hybrid, or maybe you’re simply looking at a Neanderthal that just happened to have a smaller brow ridge than his friends. Or maybe you’re looking at a human child who had a receding chin.”
    “Well, what do
you
think? I mean, you personally, not professionally? ”
    “I honestly don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t be bowled over if he
is
a hybrid. I also wouldn’t be bowled over if he isn’t. Could be human. Could also be Neanderthal.”
    “Oh, that’s helpful.”
    “Sorry, it’s the best I can do. The thing is, it’s not as if we have thousands of Neanderthal remains to look at and compare. At most there are only a few hundred in the entire world, and most of those are just fragments, and very few are children, so we’re still learning what their