LogFAQs > #891476963

shadowsword87 posted...

but you talked about the book that kicked off this idea

Sapiens?

It's actually a damned good book, by the way. And contrary to what the title might imply, it deals with a lot more than just early prehistoric man. I recommend it as a read/buy if you haven't already.



shadowsword87 posted...

If a tribe of neanderthals somehow managed to survive into 400BC, what would they be like, compared to a society against more "modern" homo sapiens? What would they sound like? Would they even have a language? Would they have begun to have tools along with homo sapiens?

Would depend entirely on how and why they survived, I'd say.

If we're assuming they survived by being in a completely unreachable area that no homo sapien could reach in order to displace them (which would involve creative liberties with real world geography, because in actual history no such place really existed), then they could have existed unchanged, and would have been very much like the way they were in their heyday.

(This "isolation" scenario is how the last surviving "alternative" to homo sapiens seemed to survive until it's relatively "recent" end around 12000 BC or so - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis )

Alternatively, we can assume a history where Neanderthals underwent a "cognitive revolution" in the same way homo sapiens did (some time around 70,000 BC or so) - early homo sapiens seems to have very distinct behavior differences from later, "modern" humans. If Neanderthals underwent the same shift, they might have been better able to compete (especially since they were stronger physically, and seemingly able to repel most homo sapien incursions prior to that point from what we can tell), and thus, survive much longer, possibly even to modern times.

(This "cognitive revolution" argument could actually work well in sci-fi with alien experimenters or precursor races who "uplift" primitive homo sapiens at that point, with the potential for Neanderthals to be uplifted in the same way.)

If we assume "moderized" Neanderthals who change enough to be able to survive and compete against homo sapiens, it's pretty much impossible to say what sort of behavior patterns they would have - they would be radically different, and could share or lack any given trait we normally associate with homo sapiens as long as it suits the needs of the author.

If we assume classic Neanderthals who survive unchanged in some way, it's hard to say what their behavior would be like at all, because we really don't know all that much about them at all. Contrary to popular assumptions about what cavemen were like in general, we know very little about Neanderthals. Almost every claim ever made about them has been disputed at one time or another. We can't even say if they had language as we understand it (though I would assume they almost certainly had some level of communication, because even modern primates do).

They would definitely possess simple tools, because we know actual Neanderthals did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_behavior

Also, this is a book you might want to consider looking into:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_in_the_Bottomlands

And, of course, there's also this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_Little_Boy


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