Lat night, Michele took me to see the Werner Herzog documentary/commentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams about the Chauvet Cave in France. It was both inspiring and illuminating. It was also typical Herzog. For a taste of Herzoq compared to other directors on the same subject, check this out – courtesy of Slate.

One of the things I walked away from the movie was the realization that we humans were in Europe at the same as the Neanderthals. They are now gone and, although the movie doesn’t touch on it, it is hard to not think we wiped them out. Either by killing them or moving into their econiche. According to National Geographic, we even have some Neanderthal DNA. Not much, about 1% to 4%, maybe a little more. So there was also some interbreeding between modern humans and our extinct cousins as well as lots of killing. It seems that we – modern humans – first found other humans shortly after leaving Africa and, of course, we, eventually, wiped them out.

My favorite line in the movie went something like We shouldn’t be called Homo sapiens, we should be called Homo spiritualien. This because we – modern humans again – were the first to make art. Although I do remember that Neanderthals buried their dead with flowers; that should be a sign of believing in something after death -spirituality.

Joe Bob says check it – Cave of Forgotten Dreams – out.