Comments on: Our Epic Prehistory

By: BG

BG — Sun, 19 May 2013 04:30:49 +0000

Modern science has revealed to all that we and neanderthals did co-exist. Below is a link to an article that should not be a shock to anyone looking into the subject of neanderthals, but most certainly would have missed this in the classroom.
http://www.articlesbase.com/christianity-articles/what-about-the-neanderthal-man-652099.html

By: Dan Goodman

Dan Goodman — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 20:38:15 +0000

Peggy, correction: The human precursors on Ringworld were Pak, not anything from Earth.

By: Athena Andreadis

Athena Andreadis — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:36:10 +0000

The Clan of the Cave Bear series is awful; among other things, it shows the Cro-Magnons as Aryan blonds who have discovered face-to-face sexual congress. Here are some better alternatives that focus on interactions of different human cousin groups: Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Animal Wife Pat Murphy, The Shadow Hunter (updated version) William Golding, The Inheritors Björn Kurtén, Dance of the Tiger Also, two Poul Anderson short stories: one is The Long Remembering, I can't recall the title of the other right now. My views on the Cro-Magnon/Neanderthal/Denisovan encounters: Neanderthal Genes: The Hidden Thread in Our Tapestry The House with Many Doors (the Denisovans and Tocharians)

By: Manuel Royal

Manuel Royal — Wed, 09 May 2012 20:26:37 +0000

When I read about Neanderthals (or Neandertals; the spelling and pronunciation have gone back and forth in the past couple of decades), I always think of three great Neanderthal characters:

Clarence Gaffney in L. Sprague de Camp’s famous story “The Gnarly Man” (a 50,000-year old immortal Neanderthal living in the modern world); Lester del Rey’s moving “The Day is Done”, in which the last Neanderthaler lives with a tribe of Cro-Magnon; and Isaac Asimov’s even more moving “The Ugly Little Boy”.

By: Peggy

Peggy — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:47:42 +0000

I hadn’t even considered the implications of possible Neanderthal ancestry being limited to European and Asian populations. And that does make the “Neanderthals were superior to Homo sapiens” trope more disturbing.

By: Paul Schroeer-Hannemann

Paul Schroeer-Hannemann — Tue, 08 May 2012 04:21:34 +0000

I’m not sure I like the implications of suggesting that H. neanderthalensis were better than H. sapiens in any way. Both because it denigrates our own species and because there is some evidence that some (specifically light-skinned and red- or blond-haired) modern humans have neanderthal ancestors.

By: Ken

Ken — Tue, 08 May 2012 01:53:22 +0000

Thank you for the post Ryan! There are so many common threads among civilizations concerning mythological creatures and cataclysmic events, it’s hard to imagine we’ve been able to categorize and explain the world in the last few hundred years.. I haven’t been able to track it down since having first read it, but the Cheyenne creation story is fascinating: the Great Spirit created red, white and hairy men who co-existed on the Earth. Good stuff! Thanks again.

By: Ryan Anderson

Ryan Anderson — Tue, 08 May 2012 01:09:25 +0000

Paul: I’ve heard of Clan of the Cave Bear but i have been putting off reading it on the off chance that I found the time to write some fiction based on the above ideas myself. I didn’t want to be too influence by it. Still, it’s on my list to read at some point.

Peggy: I didn’t realize neanderthals were so popular! I really did not like Ringworld and I had forgotten that there were prehistoric humans in it. I don’t know of any stories with a similar premise, but some readers might…

By: Peggy

Peggy — Tue, 08 May 2012 00:31:59 +0000

Neanderthals seem to be a popular in SF “what could have been” stories. It seems like it usually turns out they are actually smarter than Homo sapiens and given a second chance they take over the world.

I like the idea of Niven’s Ringworld, where prehistoric humans (Homo erectus?) were transplanted to the Ringworld and evolved without any natural predators. That resulted in a wide range of humanoid species filling different niches. That said, I found Niven’s execution of the premise disappointing. Are there any other SF novels that explored the a similar premise?

By: Paul Schroeer-Hannemann

Paul Schroeer-Hannemann — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:25:53 +0000

The “Earth’s Children” (starting with Clan of the Cave Bear) series is about a Cro-Magnon raised by Neaderthals, for some reason it gave the Neanderthals Genetic Memory. Also the “Neanderthal Parallax” presents an alternate reality where H. sapiens sapiens went extinct instead of Neanderthals, though I find it hard to believe that they could develop a highly technologically advanced ecologically friendly society and remain hunter-gatherers. And I believe one of Harry Turtledove’s “what-ifs” was one where the Americas were inhabited by an Australopithecus-like hominids when the European colonists arrived instead of humans.