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The Neanderthal
Topic Started: Sep 5 2008, 07:37 PM (2,272 Views)
Yorick
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*Alternate timeline finds that through mercy of early man, neanderthals did not go exinct when the cro-magnon migrated to Europe.

It's present day. What happens?

I think that humans would today would still be at around the same point in our civilization. We still have coomputers connected to the interent, airplanes, telephones, etc.

The neanderthal on the other hand are our servants/pets. They're not slaves like the Africans of pre-Civil War America or ancient Rome and the like but rather treated as a higher form of animal. Much like the goblins of the "Harry Potter" books. They're treated higher than our companion pets like cats and dogs but since they can talk and have hands with an opposable thumb, they're very helpful and we're practically symbiotic.

Humans rule the world with our mastery of science and technology while our primitive cousins pass us the test tubes.


*According to scientific law, an ecosystem has a fixed number of species. When a new species is introduced to a foreign ecosystem, either that new species dies out because it can't adapt or the new species thrives and drives a a native rival or food animal to extinction. For the purposes of this scenario, this law was upheld because of man's tendency to step out of his biology and live alongside the neaderthal.
Edited by Yorick, Nov 9 2008, 12:32 AM.
"I believe, that whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you...stranger"

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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Congrats!!!
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lamna
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Why thank you. Hurrah for counting.

Has anyone ever read the Neanderthal Parallax series?
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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irbaboon
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lamna
Nov 13 2008, 12:19 PM

It's like positive racism towards Aboriginal people, particularity native Americans
Well, you have to admit Aboriginal peoples had some great cuisine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQlxFiX4d2k&feature=related
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Mei long
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lamna
Nov 13 2008, 05:01 PM
Tell me about it, siblings are just annoying.

I am just tired of human guilt.
Now on Neanderthals, why are they thought to live better with nature?
Someone mentioned that neanderthals seem to have moved around less than us, and lived most of their lives in the same smallish areas. To be able to do so, they couldn't have destroyed their environment. Yes, they could have changed it, but not destroyed their own opportunities to live, right? That's what many aboriginal people do today too - they weren't necessarily living better with nature than modern humans, just better than Europeans.

There's also a rule in animal behavior: if a species is well armed but lives in groups, it is probably good-natured and peaceful, simply because they can't live killing each other every time there's conflicts. Venomous snakes don't bite each other, mooses, caribous and antelopes don't kill each other with their horns and the astonishingly strong giant, the gorilla, is also much more peaceful than any other ape.
And what has this to do with neanderthals? In physical power, they overpowered modern humans easily, attacking bisons and mammoths in close combat. A 165 cm tall neanderthal man would have weighed about 150 kg, more than twice the weight of a same sized modern man. Pure muscle. They must have had special behavioral adaptations to prevent them from using their power to each other, and the simplest solution would be to make them very peaceful and gentle.

If they had coexisted with humans, I doubt they would be different enough to be treated as pets. They would be a strange minority, living either amongst us in our societies, or separated in small reservations.
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Carlos
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Quote:
 
There's also a rule in animal behavior: if a species is well armed but lives in groups, it is probably good-natured and peaceful, simply because they can't live killing each other every time there's conflicts. Venomous snakes don't bite each other, mooses, caribous and antelopes don't kill each other with their horns and the astonishingly strong giant, the gorilla, is also much more peaceful than any other ape.


Yeah, but, while some animals don't kill each other as adults, canibalism is very common. And one forgets about the fact rape is quite common in the animal kingdom (take waterfowl as an example; I think I've onced saw something about pedophilia in mammals), and one can interpret the fact that some animals offer presents to their mates as prostitution, because they mate in return for the presents
Edited by Carlos, Dec 28 2008, 10:42 AM.
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Venatosaurus
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Wow its amazing how little different we are from the rest of the animal kingdom, yet numerous faniciful primates neglect this believing we are divine creatures ;)



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lamna
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Or perhaps Neanderthals were simple worse hunters than modern humans?
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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povorot
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I'm pretty sure what it came down to was the decline of european megafauna when man came to compete with the same prey. Much like the sabertooth, the neanderthal was an apex predator - and more importantly, nearly an obligate carnivore. It wasn't that they'd need more protein then people, and so needed meat - it's that their entire culture and biology was based around killing large beasts. Homo sapiens is a much more versatile animal, in terms of dietary needs, while the neanderthals needed megafauna to kill, because that's what they'd specialized to hunt. They were tied to their prey, not the glacial tundra. For example, the sabertooth's giant teeth make it excellent at taking down large prey, but inhibit it from exploiting other food sources, like bones or smaller game - much like the neanderthal, and why it suffered the same fate. This all would feed into the neanderthal evolutionary plateau with the stone-tipped spears and hand axes - 30,000 years ago, we were making boomerangs with mammoth tusks while the neanderthals may not even have thought of thrown spears yet (I don't believe that, but that's another theory given, since all their tech found is robust and not designed for throwing).

Combine that with the apparent fact (from one of those previous natgeo articles) that we have an easier time bearing kids, the neanderthals wouldn't have stood a chance. I doubt that they were substantially gentler then us with one another. We're gentle with family and band members, and violent with enemies and competitors - much like chimps, lions, crows, etc... any species with a concept of "us and them" (and the numbers) will fight competitors. Also, I think their more specialized biology and culture wouldn't have allowed them more then "advanced" hunter-gatherer societies, like the haida and tlingit. Don't forget that the new world never independently invented the wheel - why is an advanced culture the inevitable result of intelligence? Seeing as intelligence isn't an inevitable result either, that's a little ridiculous.

(Point is, the neanderthals were just another competitor, like the cave hyenas. We probably fought with the neanderthals, and they fought with us - we just replaced our ranks quicker. )
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ashwinder
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There seems an overarching assumption of Sapien intelligence over Neanderthals which is still unknown. Primarily neanderthals had a larger brain than even modern Homo sapiens, this is mainly due to an extended 'orbital bun' which people have yet to interpret properly in terms of cognitive ability.

I would argue that what the neanderthals really lacked was behavioural flexibility probably due to lack of extended postnatal brain growth. Still what of modern day neanderthals? Well I'm thinking they would have taken a very similar trajectory to that taken by their lanky flat-faced Sapien cousins. I've heard evidence for the neanderthal hyoid bone suggesting a more lyrical/musical form of language... indeed if I were to create an imagined world with future-neanderthals I might take poetic licence with this and call them the 'singerpeople'! (just for kicks) I believe these people would exist not as pets to humans but merely as a shorter stockier seperate race/subspecies capable of interbreeding but rarely doing it!
Edited by ashwinder, Mar 5 2009, 07:58 PM.
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Yorick
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Strange how our opinion of ourselves has swung from having a place above nature, to being some sick mistake.


I blame secularization and advances in scientific research and further knowledge of biology.

Humans once thought they were God's prime creation that inhabited a planet that even the Sun orbit around and now we know that we're just an animal that was lucky enough to become the most powerful species known.

We're a very smart animal, but just an animal that only happened to luckily evolve into the dominant life form on Earth.
"I believe, that whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you...stranger"

-The Dark Knight (2008)
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If Neanderthals had survived, and actually engaged in a similar progression of culture as H.sapiens, they probably would've gotten to the heavy metals faster, thus dominating or otherwise having some edge over some of the Stone-Age and subsequent Bronze-Age peoples. They probably would've become similar to the Vikings, in many respects.
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Ook
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they will ive with us,same culture,same civilisation(i speak about us,in far east can be different situation..)
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Most likely so. Still, there'd no doubt be a very different history with them around. I definitely know that Europe would look very different.
You may be a king or a lil' street sweeper, but sooner or later, you'll dance with the reaper!
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Kamidio
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I know that the island of Nippon(Japan) would look different.
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...why?
Neanderthals lived in Europe, so there would definitely be change involving European-born Neanderthal countries and civilizations. What does Japan have to do with Neanderthal-Human-cohabitant history?
You may be a king or a lil' street sweeper, but sooner or later, you'll dance with the reaper!
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