"The Grisly Folk" Topic

The Grisly Folk is a 1921 speculative essay by H.G. Wells that concerns the migration to the Northern Hemisphere by modern humans that ends with the extinction of the Neanderthals. The work is available free online. It is interesting due to Wells' portrayal of the Neanderthals as cannibalistic subhuman hairy monsters that resist human encroachment before being overcome by the more evolved invaders. It is compelling to me that while Neanderthal cannibalism has been confirmed by various butchered remains, their image as shambling hairy orcs has been entirely discarded by several sets of remains since the first discovery of the remains of an arthritic old Neanderthal.

Well, given that most non-African descent peoples have between 2% (Asia) to 9% (some European peoples) Neanderthal DNA, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Neanderthal were more like a distinct race and culture rather than a different human species? If they were a different species, they wouldn't have bred across multiple generations -- they would have been sterile.

So HG Wells was following a bit of a supremacist line of common thinking when looking at Anthropology and history, declaring the superiority of white European mankind. Then it flipped sometime in the 1960s, and Neanderthal were recast as happy nature hippies who were slaughtered by evil white European man.

The reality is more mixed -- you probably couldn't tell a Neanderthal from someone on the streets of a major Western city today. It was more likely a long term interaction, both friendly, indifferent and hostile. Tribes competing, cooperating, marrying into each other, fighting each other until distinct Neanderthal peoples were completely intermingled. Not a steel cage death match.

Just following conventional biology, neanderthals are classified as a separate species under the genus Homo. Domestic dogs and wolves are also classed as distinct species and hybridize with some frequency if mingling is possible. I recall that neanderthals have skeletal differences that are measurable – pelvis, brain case, inner ear bones.

Wells also does not describe the H. sapiens sapiens as fair hair/eyes, but as "brownish, brown-eyed, with wavy brown hair." Sounds reasonable.

Thousands of cave bear bones found at Paleolithic site

link

Armand