Adam and Eve
What do you think about the claim that genes were found in the DNA of homo sapiens?
I'm not a geneticist.
We have to follow the facts wherever they lead.
The Church is not wedded to any scientific theory (or observation) about how we developed.
Cf. Humani Generis for the theological commitment of the Church to monogenism: we believe that there was an original First Pair of human beings from whom all of us are descended and from whom we inherit the condition of being alienated from God and from each other (Original Sin).
We don't know how far back in history that event goes.
We don't know the "real" names of the First Pair. The Bible calls them "Adam" and "Eve" (Gen 2-3). "Adam" means "the man" and "Eve" is said to mean "mother of all the living" (Gen 3:20).
John Paul II wrote on evolution in 1996. He says that we must accept the fact of evolution in the sense that one form of life comes from another. We may not accept the atheistic interpretations of that fact.
I know it's a speculative question, but it's somewhat interesting to consider whether neanderthals had rational souls. I have read that archaeological evidence indicates that neanderthals had burial customs for their dead (a form of primitive religion, perhaps?).
G.K. Chesterton's Everlasting Man has a great passage about how anthropologists tell fairy tales about what "early man" believed from the non-verbal clues left behind.
If there was religion, then, of course, there was rationality. The two go hand-in-hand. The hard part is getting at the content of the minds of the primitive humans where there is no written record (the glorious art in the caves does not count as writing).
Of course, it's not really an issue with any practical import for us today.
Right.
Anyway, have you found that a lot of the theological discussion of evolution involves a sort of covert traducianism? Or, at least, a neglect of the huge metaphysical difference between an animal (however clever) and a being with a rational, immortal soul?
Yes. The materialists necessarily want to treat humans as nothing but animals that have evolved by accident--and as animals that can be bred or engineered to new standards of excellence (C.S.L., Abolition of Man).
Do you think it would be possible to know at some point, or will this event remain forever in the "mists" of prehistory?
We won't be able to answer that question until all the evidence is in. When will the anthropologists excavate the last pre-historic site? When will the biologists finish their genetic studies?