CHAPTER XII

THE MADNESS GENE

Homo neanderthalensis

The Neander Valley, or, in German, das Neandertal, lies about twenty
miles north of Cologne, along a fold in the Düssel River, a sleepy tributary
of the Rhine. For most of its existence, the valley was lined with limestone
cliffs, and it was in a cave in the face of one of these cliffs that, in 1856, the
bones were discovered that gave the world the Neanderthal. Today the
valley is a sort of paleolithic theme park. In addition to the Neanderthal
Museum, a strikingly modern building with walls of bottle green glass,
there are cafés selling Neanderthal-brand beer, gardens planted with the
sorts of shrubs that flourished during the ice ages, and hiking trails
leading to the site of the find, though the bones, the cave, and even the
cliffs are all gone. (The limestone was quarried and carted away as
building blocks.) Directly inside the museum’s entrance stands a model of
an elderly Neanderthal smiling benignantly and leaning on a stick. He
resembles an unkempt Yogi Berra. Next to him is one of the museum’s
most popular attractions: a booth called the Morphing Station. For three
euros, visitors to the station can get a profile shot of themselves and,
facing that, a second profile that’s been doctored. In the doctored shot,
the chin recedes, the forehead slopes, and the back of the head bulges out.
Kids love to see themselves—or, better yet, their siblings—morphed into
Neanderthals. They find it screamingly funny.
Since the discovery in the Neander Valley, Neanderthal bones have
turned up all over Europe and the Middle East. They’ve been found as far
north as Wales, as far south as Israel, and as far east as the Caucasus. Vast
numbers of Neanderthal tools, too, have been unearthed. These include
almond-shaped handaxes, knife-edged scrapers, and stone points that
were probably hafted to spears. The tools were used to cut meat, to
sharpen wood, and presumably also to prepare skins. The Neanderthals