I’d say we would get rid of the Neanderthals. I couldn’t STAND having others around who can do Sudoku puzzles I can’t. :mad: :mad: 
Couldn’t we make them our slaves? Like in the same way we make horses and seeing-eye dogs our slaves. They would be well fed, loved, probably very content in their lives. We could employ them as farmers, labourers and call-centre customer service reps. There would be institutions to make sure they were treated with respect and fairness. Plus we could have the Neander-league, pro football, hockey and all that. They would be ferocious opponents, I bet they could take on the NFL!
Neanderthals were incredibly muscular and strong, but they were pretty short. And there is some indication that their arms weren’t as well adapted to trhowing as ours are. They might be good at wrestling or UFC type fighting, but maybe not football. Our own ancestors from 40,000 years ago were more robust than we are, so it’s unlcear that Neanderthals living today would be as robust as their ancestors from back in that time period. These “what ifs” are very difficult to judge, since everything else wouldn’t just be the same.
It just means that DNA testing is in its infancy
Yes, but it also means that all the other comparisons between different species need to be revised, too. What’s important is not the absolute amount of difference but the difference relative to what we find with other species. If we adopt this new standard, then 10% will porbably become the new .1%. For example, we’ll find that the difference between us a chimps is much greater than the ~1.5% figure usually cited now.
I wonder if the presence of other species of humans wouldn’t alleviate racism among humans (as others have suggested above), but aggravate it. After all, Homo erectus is demonstrably less intelligent and not human, despite their tool use and other humanoid traits. This establishes a precedent that could be used to exclude, say, African humans, from being classified as human. Sure, a close, honestly scientific look would argue otherwise, but Africans may not be given a chance to prove their humanity.
That’s an excellent, and chilling, point, Menocchio. To those who claim that other hominids would be used as pets or soldiers, I think it is extremely unlikely that any species of hominid could be domesticated. Could they be used as slaves or soldiers? Who knows.
I think it would have been impossible for other hominids to survive in Europe. If they had colonized the Americas, per Harry Turtledove, I think they would have been wiped out even more efficiently and deliberately than Native Americans were. Any that survived would be kept on preserves today.
The same would happen if they were discovered now. They’d be treated as somewhere between modern stone-age indigenous people and endangered species. They’d be given limited ranges of protected land, studied extensively, and isolated from modern society except scientists and perhaps tourists. It would be prohibited to deliberately kill one (not murder, though), but constant encroachment on their land, insufficient plant and animal resources, lack of medical care combined with increased contact with H. sapiens, etc., would all lead to very restricted population size and frequent death.
I think the men would be more readily accepted among us than the women. All it would take is for some jet-setting supermodel to start dating one and they’d be all the rage.
Speaking of “modern stone-age indigenous people”, I think the treatment of American Indians provides a good object lesson for the OP. When they were discovered by the Europeans, they were treated as savages – which they probably were, by European standards – but definitely not as equals. Reservations, “the only good Indian is a dead Indian,” etc.
I guess the question then would be if Indians were discovered now, has civilization advanced enough that the treatment would be quite different? Remember that although Indians might not have had any less mental capacity, and are Homo sapiens, they were still treated badly and not as fully human. What would happen if some group were found that wasn’t even human, merely close?
Using the example of the closest relatives we have today, the various ape populations, I would say that odds are likely H. erectus could be at least tamed in captivity. Neanderthals? Being even closer to humans, with a nearer capacity for reason and intelligence, I certainly would assume they could be assimilated into a society as a subset of laborers and warriors. Another point in favor of my theory is the concept of “tribe” or “group” existed in most hominid species (please someone correct me if I’m wrong here). Having that understanding, a captive population could be persuaded that a member of h. sapiens was part of the tribe, and possibly further an alpha member of it.
Yes, I agree.
From my position it looks as if they have discovered that we are all made out of very similar Lego building blocks - but they are assembled differently.
Why do we assume Neanderthals had the same skin tone and hair patterns as modern Europeans? For all we really know, they were covered in fur and looked like this.
Fixed link: …;ooked like this.
Well, if you’re doing a recreation you have to assume something. Seems like assuming similarities to modern Europeans is just as good as anything else. And that picture you linked to isn’t based on a Neanderthal skull. The nose is all wrong and the mouth projects out way too far. It looks like a strange hybrid between a qusasi-Neanderthal skull and an Australopithicine face.
As for how much hair they had… It’s a reasonable assumption that our hairlessness dates back at least to H. erectus days, although we don’t have clear proof of that. We’re fairly certain that Neanderthals wore hides for protection against the cold, so I think the relative hairlessness you normally see in recreations is the best assmuptions.
Are we? Based on what? Do you have a cite?
John, I think your last cited source is making too many logical leaps from scant evidence.
Here’s an image of a Neanderthal tool that is described as a “bone scraper.”
Looks to me like a skinning tool. Useful for skinning animals before you butcher them. How that proves Neanderthals weren’t furry is beyond me.
(Damn it.) Neanderthal “bone scraper.”
Well, you’ll have to take that up with the scientific community because this isn’t just some lone scientist speculating-- it’s the general concensus you’ll find if you read the literature. Now, that’s not to say they couldn’t be wrong, but that is the current thinking. I’m not suggesting anything more than that. Who knows… maybe we’ll find a frozen Neanderthal some day and he’ll be covered in fur.
But the other reason we think they were not hairy is that it’s likely our hairless evolved during the time of H. erectus at least in part as a cooling mechanism in the hot African climate. And as someone stated in the GQ thread, it makes more sense to model their apperance after ours than to model it after chimps since they are much more closely related to us than they are to chimps.
Yeah, but a pet dachshund humping your leg is one thing. A Neanderthal humping your leg is a whole different ball game.