Why did human intelligence suddenly surge ahead?
Various theories have been proposed, but no true consensus has ever been reached. The most common thought is that the Great Leap Forward coincided with early man’s migration out of Africa, when we were exposed to foreign lands and unique challenges, which stimulated new innovations and ways of looking at life.
But what if it was something more? What if during this migration, early man encountered something more powerful than simply new lands, something that changed our DNA? Geneticists know that it was around this same time that man first encountered Neanderthal tribes and began to interbreed.
One accepted fact of biology is a condition called hybrid vigor, where the mating of two different species results in an offspring of a stronger constitution than either parent—and this applies to their intelligence levels, too. Here’s one example: mules are the result of the crossing of a female horse with a male donkey, and spatial intelligence tests confirm that mules are in fact smarter than either parent.
But could hybrid vigor also apply to us? Could the union of Neanderthals and early man have created children with some enhanced intelligence? We can never say for sure as there is no current way to produce that pure hybrid, an individual truly 50 percent Homo neanderthalensis and 50 percent Homo sapiens (though we’re not far from achieving that goal, which raises a whole slew of ethical questions). Still, we do know that our interbreeding with Neanderthals was beneficial enough that we still carry their DNA in our genome.
So exploring this possibility became the seed from which this novel grew. But let’s look more closely at some of the facts and tease out what’s true and what’s not.
Neanderthals and Other Hominins
Our understanding of the history of early man and our relationship with other tribes has changed rapidly over the past couple of years. Even over the course of writing this novel, I had to keep tweaking the story line to address the latest revelations. We do know it wasn’t just Neanderthals that left traces in our genomes, but also an extinct species called the Denisovans, who contributed an important and unique gene that allows Tibetans to live at high altitudes. Likewise, over the past year, another fingerprint in our DNA suggests there was a third extinct species that also added to our genome, but anthropologists have yet to identify those individuals—though they do believe they lived somewhere in the Far East and were likely an offshoot of our earlier relative Homo erectus.
This brings us to another important hominin species, Meganthropus, which was a Homo erectus offshoot who lived in the Far East and was a contemporary of early man. Could this be that mysterious long-lost contributor to our DNA? What we do know from the fossil record is that this species was indeed large, by some estimates well over nine feet tall.
Likewise, other hominin species shared the planet with us, including the hobbit-like Homo floresiensis from Indonesia and the mysterious Red Deer Cave people of China. So ultimately the true history of early man continues to grow and expand.
Lastly, while this final beast isn’t a hominin, it’s worth mentioning that the extinct species of giant gorilla, Gigantopithecus blacki, truly existed in the Far East, surviving long enough to share the planet with early man. The beasts towered ten feet tall and weighed half a ton each. Some believe such creatures may still exist today, thriving in remote areas of the Himalayas; they may possibly even be the basis behind the legends of yetis and abominable snowmen.
For this novel, I based the creation of the hybrids on a savage combination of Meganthropus and Gigantopithecus.
But for more information on Neanderthals, I recommend:
Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes by Svante Pääbo
Nonhuman Primates
This novel contains volumes of information about gorillas, their intelligence, and their comprehension of self, including the fact that sign-language-capable gorillas will teach other gorillas to sign and are fond of naming objects, people, and other gorillas. Much of this intelligence and consciousness applies to other great apes (chimpanzees, orangutans, and bonobos) and is exemplified by the character of Baako. There’s been a growing movement to recognize primates as worthy of equal protections. The European Union, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand already ban or tightly restrict the use of great apes as research animals. The United States has no such restrictions and continues to use gorillas and chimpanzees in projects with limited oversight or supervision. Maybe it’s high time we revisit this policy.
China
I spent time in China researching this story and learned how wonderful the people are there, but there remain serious issues, mostly centering on the government’s level of secrecy and espionage. I did visit the Beijing Zoo and found the state of that zoological park to be appalling. The government continues to hint at changes and plans to move the place into a larger facility outside the city with more modern accommodations. So hopefully now that I’ve blown it up, they’ll get on with those plans.
This story also centers on the Chinese government’s ongoing and pervasive system of hacking, espionage, and infiltration. It seems a month doesn’t go by without some new report of such an attack. Likewise, the placement of foreign nationals in U.S. colleges and institutions—much of it sponsored by the American taxpayers through grants and financial aid—is growing into an ever-larger threat to our national security, not to mention shipping much of our intellectual capital abroad.
Also, as I was writing this story about the cavalier nature of China’s willingness to explore the manipulation of human embryos, my newsfeed began to fill with reports of a group of Chinese researchers who were dabbling with altering the human genome at the level of germ cells, which is the first step toward wresting control of human evolution. And according to an article in New Scientist, at least one U.S. group and several more in China are continuing this work with human embryos. So how far from the truth is this story line? How far into the future might this come true?
Apparently it’s yesterday’s news.
Father Athanasius Kircher
I mentioned this Catholic priest at the beginning of the novel, a man known as the Leonardo da Vinci of the Jesuit Order. Almost every detail of his life found in this story is accurate: from his volumes of work, both practical and fanciful, to his own adventuring, which included being lowered into Mount Vesuvius before an eruption. I found his mix of science and faith fascinating. I’d certainly love to have him over for dinner sometime—along with his paleontologist friend, Nicolas Steno.
The history of Kircher’s connection to the Sanctuary of Mentorella is also true, including the fact that his heart is buried there. And while I did add the “history of languages” inscribed on the chapel walls and the secret chamber below it, it’s worth mentioning that Kircher was a clever engineer, crafting all manner of mechanical gadgets and automatons. Stanford University has reconstructed a handful of his devices, including his magnetic clock, and there’s an entire museum dedicated to his work in Los Angeles called the Museum of Jurassic Technology.
Lastly, I was not the first one to notice that Kircher’s map of Atlantis that appears in Mundus Subterraneus (a map he claims came from ancient Egyptian sources) bears a striking resemblance to South America.
So let’s move on to that distinct possibility.
Atlantis and Father Carlos Crespi
The description of Crespi’s collection of artifacts (numbering more than 70,000 items) is accurate but the collection continues to be shrouded in mystery. What is known for sure is that Father Crespi firmly believed the artifacts represented solid evidence of a lost civilization hidden in Ecuador, one that had communication with the rest of the globe. Most archaeologists contest this claim and believe the natives’ gifts were forgeries and fakes. But with the dispersal of his collection into various museums—both government and private—no one has truly done a proper accounting. To me, it defies common sense that natives would craft such forgeries from gold and precious gems. Likewise, Crespi was no fool. He
held multiple doctoral degrees, lived in the area for over five decades, and knew the area and its natives far more intimately than any archaeologist.
For more details about this collection, check out:
Atlantis in the Amazon: Lost Technologies and the Secrets of the Crespi Treasure by Richard Wingate
As to how the story of Petronio Jaramillo and Neil Armstrong ties into Crespi’s discoveries, a comprehensive and thoroughly fascinating firsthand account of this history was written by Stan Hall, a man who was there. It’s an exciting and thought-provoking read. In that same book, I discovered Jaramillo’s account of his journey to the lost library. I loosely based our heroes’ trip to that drowned city on that account, from the sculpture garden to the golden skeleton atop a crystal dais. Of course I took generous liberties from there. Check it out:
Tayos Gold: The Archives of Atlantis by Stan Hall
Ancient Civilizations
In this novel, there was much discussion about the possibility of a lost civilization of ancient teachers—whether you call them Watchers, Atlanteans, the Brotherhood of Saints, or simply an unknown group of megalithic builders. The details concerning the mysteries of the megalithic yard and its connection to the circumference of the planet are as described in this book. But I’ve barely scratched the surface on the true history of this discovery. For a more faithful and comprehensive account, I recommend you read:
Civilization One: The World Is Not As You Thought It Was by Christopher Knight and Alan Butler
These same authors also expanded upon the importance of the number 366 in relation to the earth, sun, and moon. So let’s move a little farther out.
Mysteries of the Moon
Okay, I have to admit that I never questioned the strange coincidence that during a total solar eclipse the shadow of the moon perfectly covers the face of the sun. But it is strange. It occurs only because the moon is 400 times smaller than the sun, while also sitting 1/400th distance between the earth and the sun. Isaac Asimov described this odd alignment as “the most unlikely coincidence imaginable.”
The other ratios and dynamics described in this book are also accurate and come from the following shocking book:
Who Built the Moon? by Christopher Knight and Alan Butler
Here’s one of those “coincidences” described mathematically, revealing the magic of the number 366.
Polar circumference of the earth 40,008 km × 100 = 366%
Circumference of the moon 10,917 km
What else can we do with numbers?
The Number 37
Despite Doug Adams’s assertion in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything is not 42.
It’s 37.
In Knight and Butler’s book, they derived the number 366 by dividing the arc-minute circumference of the planet into 6 seconds. I scratched my head at this decision, looked at my watch, and decided to divide that arc-minute into the usual 60 seconds. Doing this, I came up with the number 36.6—which still demonstrates the magic of that fundamental planetary code, but if you round that decimal up, you get 37.
I did this arbitrarily, but afterward I realized I had just read an article in New Scientist titled “Is the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything 37?” It presented evidence that buried in our genetic code is the prime number 37. That number repeats over and over again, both in our code and in the amino acids produced by that code.
Likewise, through the cabalistic numerology known as gematria, one finds that same prime number buried within the first line of the Bible (along with the number pi). And paired with its mirrored prime (73), you do indeed discover strange patterns of six-pointed stars.
Lastly, yes, the average temperature of the human body is also 37 degrees Celsius.
What does this all mean? Is it evidence of some cryptic communication, a sign of God’s hand, or simply a coincidence? Just food for thought: the possibility of this number appearing by random chance in our genetic code alone was calculated to be:
1 out of 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
So I’ll let you make your own judgment, but I certainly wouldn’t buy a ticket if those were the odds of the lottery.
In the meantime, for those seeking to learn more about how the universe is uniquely—almost impossibly—tuned to support life, check out this book written by an Arizona State University cosmologist:
The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? by Paul Davies
Final Thoughts
I don’t know if there is any message buried within this synchronicity of ratios found both imprinted in our genetic code and out among the symphony of the stars. Maybe it’s nothing more than a mystery to make us wonder and respect what lies around us, no matter our beliefs. Maybe it’s a call to preserve this planet, its species, this garden of life; to respect that empathy and intelligence around us in all its myriad forms; to remember that love might not be solely a human trait.
Or maybe it’s as simple as looking at the moon and wondering who we are and where we’re heading next. That’s the very question that started this novel—and perhaps a good place to stop.
ALSO BY JAMES ROLLINS
The 6th Extinction
The Eye of God
Bloodline
The Devil Colony
Altar of Eden
The Doomsday Key
The Last Oracle
The Judas Strain
Black Order
Map of Bones
Sandstorm
Ice Hunt
Amazonia
Deep Fathom
Excavation
Subterranean
BY JAMES ROLLINS AND REBECCA CANTRELL
Blood Gospel
Innocent Blood
Blood Infernal
BY JAMES ROLLINS AND GRANT BLACKWOOD
The Kill Switch
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Rollins is the New York Times bestselling author of international thrillers that have been translated into more than forty languages. His Sigma series has been lauded as one of the “top crowd-pleasers” (New York Times) and one of the “hottest summer reads” (People). He currently resides in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com
COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE BONE LABYRINTH. Copyright © 2015 by James Czajkowski. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-238164-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-06-240948-5 (international edition)
ISBN 978-0-06-240950-8 (international edition)
EPub Edition DECEMBER 2015 ISBN 9780062381637
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James Rollins, The Bone Labyrinth
(Series: Sigma Force # 11)
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