CHENNAI: The best part about being human is that there is nobody like us. Well, nobody right now, at least. There was, however, a bunch of species a few hundred thousand years ago that rivaled the human beings, or Homosapiens. Despite having made the greatest inventions ever, 150000 years ago, we were only marginally getting by. Only a million of us were present between the Indonesian archipelago and the Iberian Peninsula.
About 70,000 years ago, the Homosapiens started migrating; we migrated from East Africa to the Arabian landmasses. After having covered Eurasia, we encountered the Neanderthals; they were more muscular, had a larger brain, could use tools and fire, were better hunters, and apparently took care of the sick.
A stereotypical Neanderthal is the quintessential cave man in pop-culture; they had large foreheads, and rigid eyebrows, which were a couple of their distinct physical features. Going by scientific evidence, there 4% of Neanderthal DNA in a European descendant. The Inbreeding theory states that the Sapiens bred with the Neanderthals in the Middle East while the Sapiens also bred with the Erectus in East Asia.
Contrary to this, there is a theory called the Replacement Theory that states that there was no possible way that a Neanderthal and a Sapiens could have bred; even if they did, due to the supposedly different anatomies of the two species, the children born to them would not be fertile, hence will not survive. The purist theory goes on to state that, all humans alive today are descendant of pure Home Sapiens whose origins a can be tracked back to East Africa from 70,000 years ago.
There are numerous theories that chalk about the various possibilities that lead to the extinction of the Neanderthals. One popular theory is that, when the Homosapiens migrated to the Balkan valley where Neanderthals have been residing for thousands of years, a clash due to the lack of resources for both species, lead to rivalry in terms of skill set; the Sapiens were better hunters and gatherers.
Another unpopular theory is that of genocide. A small difference in skin color does spark a lot of debate, and violence among Sapiens in modern times. In that case, would the Sapiens have tolerated an entirely new species living amongst them? If they had not, it would have lead to extermination of an entire species.
This would have resulted in the history’s first ethnic cleansing campaign. We have grown accustomed to being the only human species in the last 10,000 years. Being the supposed epitome of creation, it is easier for us to believe that a chasm exists between us and the other species in the animal kingdom. Keeping that in mind, would we have treated the Neanderthals as human beings had they not gone extinct?
It’s easy to imagine that there would have been cultural differences, stemming from obvious behavioral differences. But given how the Neanderthals were as intelligent and evolves as we are,
in fact, they were known to have larger brains owing to their anatomy, they were proficient in communication, and could make use of language, there lies a possibility of us treating them as one of our own.
But taking into account the ethnic cleaning theory, an extension of that would lead to a campaign by a set of entitled human beings who would go all out to eradicate the Neanderthal race.
(When he isn’t writing, the creative producer with The Rascalas watches a lot of ‘cat videos’ on YouTube)