Stuff regarding Neanderthals

[The Spartan]

No, that's something that the snarling beast pictures in this thread got more or less right; they have teeth like us.

From here.

[Shroom Man 777]

They'd make for shit carnivores then.

[Zixinus]

They'd make for shit carnivores then.

Why? They were still tool-users that could use fire. They could prepare the meat.

[The Spartan]

Along those same lines they could also use tools to smash or cut open bones to get at the marrow and, thus, wouldn't need big carnivorous structures to get at it.

[Shroom Man 777]

Mrm, point. We didn't need sharp teeth to kill mammoths and dimetrodons. Sharp teeth weren't just for eating meet, but as a means for the carnivores to kill their prey. We've got other means. Presumably, so do the evil man-eating Neanderthals.

[Big Orange]

A Neanderthal's flint blade has been demonstrated slicing through cow hide quite efficiently and homo-sapien-sapiens today have jaws that are proportionately more powerful than a gorilla or chimp jaws (despite our smaller jaw bone and comparatively weaker muscles).

And even if Neanderthals looked like werewolves, humans can have sex with anything, especially our fellow apes that are as similarily as sociable as us :

Michelle Desilets [Director of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation]: Pony is an orangutan from a prostitute village in Borneo. We found her chained to a wall, lying on a mattress. She had been shaved all over her body.

I want to cry.

If a man walked near her, she would turn herself around, present herself, and start gyrating and going through the motions. She was being used as a sex slave. She was probably about six or seven years old when we rescued her, but she had been held captive by a madam for a long time. The madam refused to give up the animal because everyone loved Pony and she was a big part of their income. They also thought Pony was lucky, as she would pick winning lottery numbers.

Link

[Temujin]

Mrm, point. We didn't need sharp teeth to kill mammoths and dimetrodons. Sharp teeth weren't just for eating meet, but as a means for the carnivores to kill their prey. We've got other means. Presumably, so do the evil man-eating Neanderthals.

Just a few million years off on that particular beasty.

Snip

And the nutter in the OP has the nerve to make us the victims of Neanderthal aggression!

"Who's the savage? Modern man!"

[Simon_Jester]

Mrm, point. We didn't need sharp teeth to kill mammoths and dimetrodons...

Just a few million years off on that particular beasty.

Well, of course. That's why we don't need sharp teeth to kill them, on account of them already being dead.

[Junghalli]

While I'm not sure if this theory is particularly plausible I will say that the evolutionary origins of the uncanny valley effect do intrigue me. It could be just a mechanism to allow us to identify and ostracize mentally ill, diseased, and deformed (therefore bad gene carrying) humans, and that would be the most parsimonious explanation for it ... but I wonder if violent interactions with close relatives somewhere in our evolutionary history might have contributed to this instinctual fear we seem to have of some animal that looks almost like us but not quite. This wouldn't imply that Neanderthal Predation Theory is true, but it would imply that we didn't get along very well with some other hominid(s) or australopithicine(s) at some point, to the point that it was evolutionarily advantageous for us to instinctively fear and avoid them.

Just a few million years off on that particular beasty.

Knowing Shroom he might have done it deliberately.

[Temujin]

Just a few million years off on that particular beasty.

Knowing Shroom he might have done it deliberately.

Kinda figured that, hence the choice of smileys.

[Big Orange]

To me the Uncanny Valley effect seems more to do with animations, puppets, and robots that seem a lot like (but not quite) real people as this creepy Thunderbirds clip aptly demonstrates (AAAAAhhhh!!!).

I wouldn't say great apes genuinely creep me out like an eerily lifelike puppet would, nor would a Neanderthal most probably (he'd just look squat and bulky), but I don't like the looks of this fella (an homo-erectus):

[Shroom Man 777]

What a tiny brain.

This talk about man-eating Neanderthals reminds me of: The Beginning Was the End!

One ape discovered that eating the fresh brain of one's own kind increases the sexual impulses. He and his descendants became addicted to brains and hunted for them. It was not until later that they noticed that their intelligence increased as a result. The outcome of this process is HOMO SAPIENS.

– The Beginning was the End, p. 37

[Ilya Muromets]

What a tiny brain.

This talk about man-eating Neanderthals reminds me of: The Beginning Was the End!

One ape discovered that eating the fresh brain of one's own kind increases the sexual impulses. He and his descendants became addicted to brains and hunted for them. It was not until later that they noticed that their intelligence increased as a result. The outcome of this process is HOMO SAPIENS.

– The Beginning was the End, p. 37

... did that guy essentially claim that human intelligence arose from taking the brain power from consumed brains the same way the brain bug in the movie version of Starship Troopers somehow managed to get info from the brains it sucked in?

[Shroom Man 777]

No. It's worse!

Maerth asserted that the eating of brain produces an aphrodisiac effect (presumably due to the vast amount of hormones in it), and that this initially caused apes to become addicted to them, organizing brain hunts wherein the males of another tribe were eaten and the females raped in a frenzy of brain-induced sex and violence.[1] However, this diet also inadvertently increased brain size and intelligence[2] while triggering the loss both of body hair[3] and of our innate psychic abilities[4]. Thus man gradually came into being, remaining cannibalistic until 50,000 years ago.[5] Modern humans, alienated from their surroundings now that they've no telepathic contact with nature and each other as animals do[6], suffering from a distorted sexuality resulting from hormonal imbalances[7], and driven insane from the constant pressure of their unnaturally large brains pressing on the inside of their skulls[8], are inevitably destroying themselves with pollution, overpopulation[9], racial integration[10] and ultimately, nuclear war. He foresees a return to cannibalism in the near future[11], and suggests that the reader should drop out of society[12], embrace a vegetarian diet, steep himself in the wisdom of the East[13] and perhaps employ various wooden frames and wire devices to alter the shape of his skull as some ancient cultures did, thus relieving the pressure on the brain and partially restoring psychic powers.

The book contains no references whatsoever, based alternately on alleged conversations with present-day cannibals[15], the eating of ape brain by the author[16] and religious prophecy. Many parts have been deemed by some as being outright racist, particularly the photographic plates comparing various ethnic faces (primarily Arab and African) to apes.[17] He says that blacks have smaller brains than whites[18] and that contemporary cannibal tribes are seeking to remedy this discrepancy by consuming brains in a frantic attempt to catch up, though he estimates that it would take them roughly 100,000 years to do so.[19]

[dworkin]

Hmm, psionic powers or yummy brains for dinner.

Tough choice. Mmm brains.

[cosmicalstorm]

Thanks for posting that Shroom, I will now proceed to acquire that book.

[mr friendly guy]

I wonder how these guys explain how homo sapiens managed to "defeat" the monstrous neanderthals who look like something out of a fantasy novel. I have heard that homo sapiens were more successful as climate change shrank the forests which neanderthals dominated and we moved into the open plains where we had the advantage, namely because

1. Our spears were more "stealthy" compared to theirs, so its more effective for hunting animals in the open plains
2. We were better runners (due to having larger inner ear canals, hips more shaped for running etc) which were more advantageous in the open plains

linky

I suppose he could fall back onto these reasons.