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Neanderthals were prone to depression, he said.

He said they are also prone to addiction, especially smoking.

Perhaps these noble and mysterious Taal people (as he sometimes called Neanderthals) extracted nicotine from tobacco plants by cruder methods, such as chewing the leaves, before a critical inflection point in history. Of the world he said was likely extracted: When beginning a man touched beginning on tobacco leaves beginning fire.

As I read this part of Bruno’s email, skimming from “man” to “touch” to “leaf” to “fire,” a 1950s greaser wearing a white T-shirt and black leather jacket caught fire. I could imagine touching the tip of a match with a mark on it. I take a sip of Camel’s cigarette and inhale. The Greaser leans against the wall—that’s what Greasers do, so they lean and wander—and exhales.

Bruno Lacombe told Pascal in these emails, which I secretly read, that Neanderthals had very large brains. Or at least their skulls were so large that we can safely assume that their skulls were probably filled with brains, Bruno said.

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He used modern metaphors to talk about the impressive size of Thar’s brainbox, comparing it to a motorcycle engine and noting that its displacement had also been measured. Of all the two-legged, human-like species that roamed the Earth over the past million years, the Neanderthal brainbox was come forward a whopping 1,800 cubic centimeters.

I imagined the King of the Road up ahead.

I could see his leather vest, big guts, legs outstretched, engineer boots resting on spacious chrome-plated footpegs mounted in the front. His helicopter is fitted with a barely reachable ape hanger, which he pretends won’t tire his arms or cause severe gunshot pain in his lower back.

Bruno said Neanderthals’ skulls show they had huge faces.

Inspired by Joan Crawford. that Facial scale: dramatic, brutal, convincing.

And after that, the natural history museum in my head, the museum diorama I was creating while reading Bruno’s email, showed people in loincloths, yellow teeth, and messy hair, ancient people drawn by Bruno. All included men. They all looked like Joan Crawford.

They had her white skin and fiery red hair. Bruno said scientific advances in genetic mapping have shown that red hair is an inherited trait of the Thar tribe. And beyond such research and evidence, we might use our natural intuition to infer that, like the typical redhead, Neanderthal emotions were strong, sharp, and spanned high and low. , said Bruno.

Bruno writes Pascal some of the things we currently know about Neanderthals. They were good at math. They didn’t like crowds. They had strong stomachs and were not particularly prone to ulcers, but their diet of constant barbecuing took a toll on their intestines, just like everyone else’s. They were particularly vulnerable to tooth decay and periodontal disease. And while they had overdeveloped jaws that were surprisingly capable of chewing through gristle and cartilage, they were inefficient at eating soft foods. Too much. Bruno described the Neanderthal jaw as characteristic of its overdevelopment, pathos due to the burden of a square jaw. He talked about sunk costs as if the body were a capital investment, a fixed investment, a machine-like body part bolted to a factory floor, equipment that had been purchased and could not be resold. The Neanderthal jaw sunk cost.

Still, Bruno said the tar’s heavy bones and sturdy, heat-conserving construction are worthy of praise. Especially when compared to the breadstick-like limbs of modern humans. homo sapiens sapiens. (Bruno didn’t say “breadsticks,” but since he was writing these emails in French, I was translating, which is a very good language and my native language.) (The full text in English was used.)

The Thar people survived the cold well, he said. The story about them continues, if not for centuries – the story we know. must be complicated he said, if we want to know the truth about the ancient past, if we this The world, now, and how to live in it, how to spend the present, and where to go tomorrow.

——

My own tomorrow was meticulously planned. I am scheduled to meet Pascal Balmy, the leader of Le Moulin, who was the addressee of Bruno Lacombe’s email. And I didn’t need Neanderthal help on where to go. Pascal Balmy tells me to go to the Café de la Route in the central square of the small village of Ventôme at one o’clock in the afternoon, and that’s where I am.

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