How would society look today if Neanderthal still existed?

dlofnep

This is probably more of a philosophical question, but I think it's probably better suited here.

Neanderthals existed up until around 25,000 years ago (a heartbeat in real history). Despite being typecasted as stupid, their brain capacity was equal, if not larger than ours.

Let's suppose that they existed through the Ice Age and started to flourish shortly thereafter. How would society look today? Would we co-exist peacefully? Would there be terrible wars?

I would see society today as divided into two classes. Race wouldn't be an issue - It would be a divide by species. Would we have achieved more in the scientific realm? Would large scale wars 100's of years ago have been won by Neanderthal, and thus reduced human population?

Thoughts?

Kess73

Given that their diet was pretty much that of a carnivore rather than that of an omnivore, and that they would have been much stronger on average, things might get a bit messy.:)


Their brain capacity was equal to ours at birth, but larger than ours at an adult age.

Wibbs

Brain size isn't everything though. It's how those brains are organised. It seems while they were very sophisticated, their capacity for culture was much more limited than our own. Ditto their capacity for invention and even socialisation. They didnt seem to trade with others, or in a very limited way. All their tools and such are local. They seemed to be very "local" all over. Then again there is evidence late in the day they did have contact with us and tried to copy some of our culture. Jewelry for a start. Though where we drilled holes in animal teeth to string them for necklaces etc, they tied them on.

I'd say if they survived they would have just interbred with us to such a degree they would have died out anyway. If we could have viable young that is. I personally suspect we could and I also personally suspect that happened and along with other pressures thats where they went.

Or if that didn't happen, I suspect they would have kept evolving just like we did. The earliest Neandertal is a more primitive, more robust human than the last of them, where they became more gracile. This could explain why some look like hybrids. It wasn't due to crossbreeding, but just evolution to the environment.

To meet another species of human would be amazing though. For both. Us but not quite us.

Kess73

I would agree with Wibbs that crossbreeding had a huge part in how they were wiped out, that and what seems to be an inability to be more diverse in both eating habits, and food gathering habits.

Also their inability to plan ahead was a massive disadvantage. The lack of food storage, the lack of communication over distance, and as Wibbs said, the lack of trading.

The second Mad Max movie could be used as a way to tell the difference between Neanderthals and more modern man. The big roving gang led by Humungus are the Neanderthals. No set plans, just grabbing food and oil when they can. No trading with others, and no socialisations with any outside their group, and no back up plans other than trying to live on what they can get at any given time.

Those inside the camp are the modern man examples. They are able to trade, reason, store food and oil for when there is a time of less , interact with outsiders, and work as a unit and solcialise. Max would fall under the same heading.


I do think though that if you went back 25,000 years and put an equal number of Neanderthals and Cro Mags into a small area where they could not avoid each other, then there would soon be a much smaller number of Cro Mags.

marco_polo

Wibbs wrote: »

Brain size isn't everything though. It's how those brains are organised. It seems while they were very sophisticated, their capacity for culture was much more limited than our own. Ditto their capacity for invention and even socialisation. They didnt seem to trade with others, or in a very limited way. All their tools and such are local. They seemed to be very "local" all over. Then again there is evidence late in the day they did have contact with us and tried to copy some of our culture. Jewelry for a start. Though where we drilled holes in animal teeth to string them for necklaces etc, they tied them on.

I'd say if they survived they would have just interbred with us to such a degree they would have died out anyway. If we could have viable young that is. I personally suspect we could and I also personally suspect that happened and along with other pressures thats where they went.

Or if that didn't happen, I suspect they would have kept evolving just like we did. The earliest Neandertal is a more primitive, more robust human than the last of them, where they became more gracile. This could explain why some look like hybrids. It wasn't due to crossbreeding, but just evolution to the environment.

To meet another species of human would be amazing though. For both. Us but not quite us.

It is a really interesting interesting question as to whether there was a there were some minor biological reasons for their slightly less advanced culture, or if it was primairly to do with the fact that modern humans were simply the first to develop these cultural innovations, which the Neanderthals then copied to a degree.

As you point out they had gone some of the way there before they met their end, did they reach a limit of cultural sophistication before they died out, or did they simply run out of time and could have gone on to develop even more sophisticated culture.

I have a fairly open mind on the whole crossbreeding issue, even if I personally suspect that it was likely to be infrequent. One point that always springs to my mind, is that there are are a good few examples in the animal kingdom of species that are highly compatible genetically and are not geographically isolated, but where there is clear reproductive isolation maintained purely through behaviour / choice.

I believe that genetic compatability was highly likely, the million dollar question is did both species find each other mutually attractive as mates?

As for what it would be like now if they had survived as a distinct species, sadly I think all one has to do is glance backwards through human history for the most likely scenarios.

Wibbs

Kess73 wrote: »

The second Mad Max movie could be used as a way to tell the difference between Neanderthals and more modern man. The big roving gang led by Humungus are the Neanderthals. No set plans, just grabbing food and oil when they can. No trading with others, and no socialisations with any outside their group, and no back up plans other than trying to live on what they can get at any given time.

Those inside the camp are the modern man examples. They are able to trade, reason, store food and oil for when there is a time of less , interact with outsiders, and work as a unit and solcialise. Max would fall under the same heading.

Good analogy:)

I do think though that if you went back 25,000 years and put an equal number of Neanderthals and Cro Mags into a small area where they could not avoid each other, then there would soon be a much smaller number of Cro Mags

Maybe, maybe not. Cro mags would have one advantage. Distance weapons. Neandertals show injuries from getting up close and personal with the prey they hunted. They mobbed an animal and stabbed it with spears. Using them like long knives. Moderns threw the spears. That gives serious advantages, if it came to conflict. A sword is deadly but a guy with a throwing spear if he doesnt miss has the advantage of range.

marco_polo wrote: »

It is a really interesting interesting question as to whether there was a there were some minor biological reasons for their slightly less advanced culture, or if it was primairly to do with the fact that modern humans were simply the first to develop these cultural innovations, which the Neanderthals then copied to a degree.

As you point out they had gone some of the way there before they met their end, did they reach a limit of cultural sophistication before they died out, or did they simply run out of time and could have gone on to develop even more sophisticated culture.

Possibly. It's interesting to note that although we as a species are around for at least 120,000 years plus, we only became seriously cultural circa 60,000 years ago. There are some isolated early examples in us, but the real flowering happend so much later and remarkably rapidly. There are some examples of neandertals having similar cultural things to us. Indeed we were on some sort of parity in many ways. They buried their dead surrounded by ochre and grave goods. This suggests a spirtual life. They wore jewelry and red ochre as body decoration. That suggests a helluva lot of things. Thats a big leap compared to say erectus. Its the simple things though. It seems they never used needles to make clothes. One biggy which says much is their fires. They placed fires randomly in their dwelling areas. They didn't have the notion of a place for fire. A fireplace. Maybe the notion of attaching a word or notion to a repeated thing was missing. This gives a serious disadvantage in the face of a creature that does.

*Personal mad theory warning* :D As far as our cultural flowering goes, I think that it was a virus, both culturally and biologically. My suspicion is aimed at schizophrenia. A very common condition which has a genetic component and some theories posit a viral infection may trigger it. So our brain was subtly different. Along comes a virus that in a minority causes serious issues, but for the rest increases this notion of a second hidden world of possibility. Maybe genius is close to madness in a way. Then because we had trade etc, this virus and it's cultural virus/meme spread rapidly. Maybe Neandertals biology didnt leave them open to that? They never went "mad" but they never became creative either. End mad theory.

I have a fairly open mind on the whole crossbreeding issue, even if I personally suspect that it was likely to be infrequent. One point that always springs to my mind, is that there are are a good few examples in the animal kingdom of species that are highly compatible genetically and are not geographically isolated, but where there is clear reproductive isolation maintained purely through behaviour / choice.

Yes I see what you mean. The coyote and the wolf is a good example. In areas where both populations are self sustaining they almost never interbreed. There are other examples like you say. It does get interesting when one population starts to decrease and come under pressure for whatever reason. Then the amount of crossbreeding goes up a lot. Eastern US coyotes are known to be much bigger than their western cousins and this was assumed to be a local adaptation. Now genetic studies have shown that the eastern population has a high degree of wolf in them, which led to size and behavioral changes. This change the reckon happened in the last few hundred years as the spread of europeans who shot more wolves as a threat than coyotes. Which led to the wolf population dropping and interbreeding occuring.

Now look at the two hominids. I suspect the most interbreeding happened towards the end as the neandertal became more and more rare. Just like the coywolf example.

It is known that the two groups shared areas. Particular example is in Israel, where the two groups were literally a stones throw from each others caves. I doubt it was the only time.