What would society be like if we had TWO races of humans alive, Homo Sapiens and H. Neanderthalensis, (Neanderthals) in the current century? Would one enslave or continue to enslave the other? What would civil rights be like? We’ve pretty much decided that h. sapiens of all colors should be treated equally. Would we extend that to both races? Even if, as some anthropologists have suggested, the power of speech in one was limited? What if IQs or other significant abilities were different? What if Neanderthals were better at some sports?
Would there be an apartheid society anywhere (now or ever)? Would the line between apes, chimpanzees, gibbons, etc., compared to H. Sapiens be harder to draw with this sort-of intermediate form? (No, I know Neanderthals are not “the missing link”.)
What if Michael Richards called some hecklers “Neanders” (the N word)?
And would you date her even if she couldn’t speak?
It’s quite possible that we’d combine into one species and interbreed (assuming that were possible). But how Neanderthals would be treated legally is hard to say-- it would depend a lot on their cognitive ability. And I’m sure the various religions would be able to accomodate them somehow. But I doubt we’d have any need to redraw the lines between humans and other apes-- Neanderthals are too close to us. If we had an extant Australopithecine, now that woudl be another matter…
Nitpick: The species name is not capitalized: H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis.
Good points, all. But the reason I wondered about drawing the lines is we would no longer have a single species to treat one way. It’s easy with only one. If we included two species, the logical question might be why stop there? If species #2 was slightly diminished in capacity compared to us, why not extend the civil rights/legal inclusion to #3, the next-closest on the family tree?
I don’t see cognitive ability as the reason for inclusion of different human groups (cf. The Bell Curve) now, so would it be the reason for inclusion across other, more distant lines?
It would be even more interesting to include Australopithecines and other branches in this discussion. If they all survived today, how would society work? Of course, the fact that they didn’t survive might indicate they aren’t comparable, but just supposing…
Well, it would depend on whether or not we were 2 different species. Most biologists classify them as 2 speices, but that’s because they didn’t seem to interbreed. But… if we could and did do so with a group that was extant today, then we’d reclassify them as the same species.
But lets say that we couldn’t interbreed, or couldn’t produce fertile offsprings (a more likely scenario than not being able to interbreed). Then we’d have 2 species of humans, but they’d still be undeniably human, not animals. They’d hunt with weapons, they’d build fire, they’d bury their dead, etc. There is also evidence that they either had art (decorative necklaces and such) or they were able to copy the art making abilities of modern humans. We don’t know a lot about their behavior, but what we do know makes them human, and not ape (using the term “ape” to mean non-human apes). I just don’t see how it would affect the classification or treatment of the great apes, and it certainly wouldn’t affect how we think of gibbons.
I certainly don’t disagree with it, but your definition of “what makes us human” is quite modern.
I guess a lot of how we would treat them might depend on the world’s history in the last 4000 years, at least. If we had a legacy of slavery, apartheid or discrimination up to recently, it might be a different question from a situation where a Neanderthal society was suddenly discovered living independently on an isolated island and had to be assimilated (or not) into modern society. Under this scenario, “what makes us human” might be more important than it would have been, say, to the early Romans, Greeks, or Jews.
I’m not sure what you mean. I’m simply suggesting they most likely have more behaviors in common with us than they would with apes.
Since you said “in the current century” in the OP, I assume you meant with our own history, too. Are you saying, what would happen if we had been in contact ever since the first humans came into Europe, or if we suddenly discovered Neanderthals living somewhere now? If the former, I have no doubt we would’ve killed them all off or interbred with them (if we could) so that we’d be just one species. They would’ve never survived peacefully among modern humans-- we’re too agressive and hostile to outsiders.
The OP asked what it would be like now. But I can see two routes to “now” – one with Neanderthals always around, and one with their sudden discovery. I think our treatment of them “now” might be quite different.
Consider what might happen if a society of H. sapiens was suddenly discovered with green skin and signicantly different features from any other group. Wouldn’t our treatment of them be quite different than, say, the US treatment of blacks who were in this country for 200 years at least?
Harry Turtledove wrote a collection of stories called “A Different Flesh” postulating that the Americas were colonized by Homo erectus instead of paleoindians. Humans came in contact with the Erectus populations at the time of the Eurpean age of exploration.
It is interesting speculation. Today we take if for granted that all humans are equal, but this is only due to the fact that they actually are equal. What if there was a species or subspecies of humans that really were demonstrably intellectually inferior to modern humans?
In Turtledove’s world colonization of North America proceeds a bit more quickly, but we never have a legacy of African slavery…the few african indentured servants are treated pretty much like European indentured servants because* H. erectus* are used as slaves instead. And when we move into the modern era the questions become pointed. We’re OK with chimpanzees being used for medical experiments. What about Homo erectus? And even if we agree the Homo erectus can’t be used for medical experiments or slaves, what do we DO with them? They can’t be treated like adults, they are permanently incapable of full citizenship, they can’t understand money or jobs, and yet we can’t have them wandering around wild either.
Yes, but then Neanderthals would be a bit more different than a race of H. sapiens with green skins would be.
H. erectus would probably be the most difficult to deal with. They’d look a lot like us, but they wouldn’t be much like us. I think we’d still consider Australopithecines to be animals, and we’d keep them in a zoo if they weren’t running wild somewhere. But what to do with H. Erectus? I couldn’t see us putting them in zoos, but they’d almost certainly be too dangerous to live with. And here, I’m thinking of the type of early Erectus that is usually called H. ergaster.
I agree with the assessment, especially of H. erectus, as probably falling somewhere in society between intelligent pets and slaves. It really depends on the open question of how truly intelligent were H. erectus and H. neanderthalensis? If somewhere closer to human brainpower than ape, I could see them used as simple soldiers throughout history: given a weapon, taught the very basics of how to use it, and then turned loose to mob the enemy. Lord knows we did that enough to each other, look at Russia’s history, and this would potentially be even simpler, because you have fewer wheels going upstairs to ask “why, if we have most of the guns, are we taking orders from these losers?”
Yeah, if we had lived all these tens of thousands of years with Erectus among us, we might have a completely different view of slavery. We may never have enslaved our own kind, but still be OK, even in this century, with slavery of “the other”.
It could very well be today given the hypothesis of Neanderthal existing in the 21st century, that the Neanderthals would be domesticating or enslaving us.
After all, they had a larger braincase than we do.
If Neanderthals were living today they would totally clobber us at arm wrestling and boxing. Would I date her? Let’s see redhead, blue eyes, freckles… Oh yeah! I would date her. The real question is would she date me?
Acceptance of “the other” is more exceptional than not both through human history and in current events. It takes little for humans to draw distinctins that lead to war, genocide, and enslavement. This occurs not only within the same species but within the same ethnicity and broad cultural group.
Possible outcomes if somehow we had managed to coexist with large numbers:
Genocide. Well, that may be what really happened.
Clear slave status with strict taboos against interbreeding. They might be ignored sometimes but the law would be on the books and one drop it would be.
Or if clearly nonthreatening and of limited verbal capacity, then perhaps as domesticated pets.
Acceptance as equals? We still only pay lip service to that concept among members of our own species.
If they could have enslaved us with their larger braincase, then I am sure they would have. They apparently failed to develop the flexible adaptive intelligence that was required for a changing environment. Or failed to develp adequate language for cultural evolution. Or failed to be aggressive enough to stand up to a savvy competitor. Whichever. They didn’t have what it took to survive us and the bag of tricks that our slightly smaller but flexible and language enabled brains brought to the field.
Their braincases were only 8-12% larger then modern averages and may have been an adaptation to their cold environment. Homo sapiens produced superior tools despite Neanderthals having such a huge head start so I have my doubts that they were more intelligent then us.
A quick poll of people I have known suggests that the size of the head bears little relation to the intelligence.
I am totally unconvinced by the arguments that the Neanderthal did not merge with us, we have very little Neanderthal DNA to look at and it has just been discovered that current HS is a lot more genetically diverse than we thought.
From memory, today I read in the newspaper, that they took a huge sample of 270 people and found around 10% diversity, whatever that means (sounds like they were looking for longer chains).
I agree, except that they can’t be considered to have had a “head start”. If you mean that their species emerged first, that’s not really true. Both species appear in the fossil record about 200k years ago +/-.
FRDE: That report concerned looking for repeating chains (as opposed to differences in single base pairs), which is different from what we generally look at to determine genetic diversity.
