Dr. Genevieve von Petzinger

No, not... Okay.

So much of this goes back to... I mean, again, this is... We could go deep down the rabbit hole, but the really fast version of this is Darwin, evolution, thoughts that humans are special.

Everything goes back to the 1800s, right?

Basically.

And the fact that they're like, oh, well, you know, we're humans, we're special, we're the stewards of the earth, everybody else are animals.

And even again, amongst humans, we had issues with thinking that everybody was equal.

So we're already dealing with that problem.

And then...

We have another species.

Now, the thing is, is that in order for us to be special, that means everybody else has to not be special.

And it didn't help that the very first Neanderthal we ever found.

So from the Neander Valley, Neanderthal in Germany was in the 1800s.

And this poor fellow had like arthritis and stuff.

He was an older guy.

He would have been hunched over like, you know, and then they would look.

He's like this hunchback, you know, sort of like half ape thing.

And then that reinforced their beliefs at the time.

which was that we're the only ones that are like us.

And it's really interesting to see how they got really deeply ingrained in the field.

And it's been this huge fight throughout the 20th century and down to the 21st century even, because there's still people now today who would still argue with me in my field that Neanderthals did not make art.