Ivan Gunderson’s support notwithstanding, this was a perfectly respectable theory held by many reputable scientists. As was the opposing one; that is, that they were separate species who never interbred. Whether they had or hadn’t was of course of no importance at all, and even less interest, to 99.9999 percent of the civilized world, but it was an issue that had sharply split the scholars of the Paleolithic era – the Stone Age. Invectives had been hurled and, on one notable occasion, fists had flown, as gray-bearded academics fought it out at their conventions.

Then, five years ago, the matter was settled, at least in the popular mind; through Gunderson’s doing, no less. He had been excavating several Neanderthal and Homo sapiens sites in Spain and Gibraltar at the time, commuting between them as needed. The Gibraltar site, a coastal rock shelter known as the Europa Point Cave, had come to his attention when the owner of the land, bulldozing the area in a crazy scheme to turn it into a mushroom farm, had uncovered some Stone Age tools, soon determined to be Neanderthal. When Gunderson had offered to buy this promising land from him, the man had jumped at the chance to rid himself of it, and Gunderson and his crew of local workmen had started digging.

Two months’ work turned up a few more stone tools, some butchered ibex bones, and a handful of charcoal dated at 26,000 years before the present. No human remains. Mildly interesting, but not exciting enough for Gunderson; just one more meager Neanderthal encampment, little different from the many others that had been found. He offered it to Horizon, which jumped at the chance to excavate at Europa Point, and the dig thereupon proceeded in orderly, highly professional fashion for some months under their oversight, with the eminent Adrian Vanderwater of the University of California in charge of work in the field. Their efforts were generally rewarding. Two more Neanderthal burials were found, along with more tools and butchered bones, and an unusual pendant (if that’s what it was) carved from a wolf’s tooth.