What Happened to the Neanderthals?
nytimes.com14 points by Hooke a day ago
14 points by Hooke a day ago
Pluto and the modern day understanding of Neanderthals are probably Top 5 learning corrections in my lifetime.
One thing that i think should be considered in human archaeology is the narratives/stories/myths from different cultures featuring "different sorts of people". Many were handed down orally from the misty past before being written down and hence may contain some truths to them.
We are often quick to dismiss them as mere fanciful story-telling of primitive cultures but i am not so sure.
Agreed. Considering the range from neaderthals to homo florensis etc...
In the Hindu Sanskrit literature of Itihasas and Puranas it is actually made explicit that Humans ("Manusya/Manava" in Sanskrit) are distinct from other beings (eg. "Devas/Asuras/Vanaras/Gandharvas" etc. in Sanskrit), each with their own specific characteristics. And also there are plenty of stories of interbreeding amongst them.
It is fascinating to note that the distinctions are pretty clearcut throughout the vast corpus which implies it was common and wellknown at that time. There seem to be some good parallels to our anthropological knowledge of different Homo species.
In particular, the "Vanaras" were a humanoid ape-like species who have all the human psychological characteristics but with ape-like physiology. This was one source of inspiration (amongst others) for the "Na'vi" in James Cameron's Avatar movies.
The vanaras were probably conceived of around let's say generously 3000 years ago. Neanderthals disappeared about 40,000 years ago. You live ten times closer in timeline to the original Ramayana story than neanderthals did.
It's just not very plausible that hindu mythology is a corrupted record of living with multiple species of hominids. Timeline-wise, it's not much different from claiming that Tolkien's orcs and elves were part of some kind of historical memory of hominids.
Not that I 100% believe that the Vanaras were cultural memories of Neanderthals, it's pretty hard to prove and disprove this. Maybe they were. Maybe a whole bunch of stories we tell throughout the world are cultural memories of events long past.
I kinda choose to somewhat believe in this hypothesis because it's mighty fun, and makes the past look so much more romantic!