Last-stand Neanderthals queried

[Warpy]

6. Undoubtedly. In fact, humans and chimps

mated, diverged, mated again, diverged again. I'd have to look up the last divergence date, but it wasn't that incredibly long ago, considering homo habilis had been on the plains of Africa, making and using tools 3.5 million years ago (or more, that's just the earliest fossilized bone we've found). Maybe our Republican brethren just ended up with more chimp DNA.

There were likely dozens of hominid species, as yet undiscovered, who contributed DNA to us. Either climate change or interbreeding removed them as distinct species, leaving all the great apes around today a crazy salad of species.

We might also be the rough draft for intelligence on this planet, which existed for billions of years before we appeared and will continue billions of years after we're gone and forgotten.