Re: Neanderthal and PIE

Den 15. okt. 2008 kl. 18.05 skreiv Jörg Rhiemeier:
>
> Most anthropologists are of the opinion that the Neanderthals
> simply went extinct and did not contribute to the modern human
> gene pool.  If they were, as evcidenced by their artifcats,
> qualitatively less creative than our species, unable to invent
> new things or to create and appreciate fine art and music and
> all that, and possessing only a comparatively rudimentary
> language, this alone should have constituted a species barrier.
> No matter whether interbreeding was biologically possible or
> not, hardly any Cro-Magnon human would even have considered
> mating with a Neanderthal!
I don't quite agree with you on that. After all, another thing that's
typical of modern humans is the great variety in tastes, which is, I
think, linked to the imaginative ability. I wouldn't deny the
possibility that some might have been attracted to the big brutes. In
fact, bigness and brutishness is attractive to some even today. If
there was some way to communicate, there must have been some way for
attraction to develop as well, I think. Even if our ancestors
couldn't communicate any better with them than we can with our pets,
you still have the fact than humans of today do get attracted and
even attached to dumb beasts.

And even if the Neanderthals *were* startlingly uncreative and
unappreciative of finer things, I don't think we can be sure that
they were *completely* uncreative and unappreciative. The fact that
artful artifacts were found with them speaks against it. There are
uncreative and unappreciative brutes even today who don't seem to
have any trouble getting laid. Myself I cannot imagine how a
Neanderthal could be much more uncreative and unappreciative than
certain individuals I have met, and still survive in their environment.

And even if all this does not help the Neanderthals into our gene
pools, there's the possibility that they could have helped
themselves. Copulation isn't always voluntary.

LEF

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