Tag: *humans

lavalampgay:

aethelfleds:

mybookswerealltome:

aethelfleds:

tbh I think if we saw a neanderthal on the street we probably wouldn’t know they weren’t quite…us…we’d just be like “huh, that guy sure had a broad face also he must deadlift”

The newer reconstructions that they are doing show this so clearly. Both men and women, they looked….pretty much like us. Just heavier bone structure. Clearly Not Quite Us if you studied closely, but put on modern clothes, modern hairstyles, and…. yeah, they’re human.

They just look like us if we had slightly thicker bones and bigger skulls.

I love the facial expression! 

Grandpa about to tell me a story about mammoth hunting……

And they were so much smarter than we’ve given them credit for in pop culture. They were capable of creating art, which has been confirmed with cave paintings. Neanderthals had imagination. And a Neanderthal skeleton was found with an intact hyoid bone that showed they were probably capable of speaking, so they may have had language too! 

I know I bring him up a lot but I have to talk about Shanidar 1. He is a Neanderthal man who lived in what is now Shanidar, Iraq. At some point in his early life he suffered a serious blow to the head,possibly leading to paralysis on the right side of his body that caused him to lose the use of his leg and arm, and he might also have been blinded in one eye. Around 40,000 years ago that would’ve been an immediate death sentence unless he was cared for by his tribe, and he was. He was cared for so well that he lived to be 35-45 years old, an advanced age for Neanderthals. They were capable of compassion, perhaps even love. This also means that “survival of the fittest” is a bit bullshit imho.   

this is a really good post but i have a few things i’d like to point out:

experts have been speculating that neanderthals were capable of speech since at least the 1970s-80s. a fully preserved neanderthal hyoid bone was discovered in 1989, but it wasn’t until recently that we have the non-destructive analysis tools to determine that the specimen is virtually identical in shape and function to the hyoid bone of modern humans, meaning neanderthals likely spoke, and may have been capable of complex language. because of the dimensions of their vocal tract, though, they probably couldn’t produce the same quantal vowel sounds as anatomically modern humans, making their speech sound different than ours. (fun fact: this study also found that because of their relatively short vocal tract in comparison with that of homo sapiens, neanderthals may have had higher pitched voices, in the soprano range)

neanderthals could most definitely experience emotions, including compassion and love. they buried their dead. they cared for their disabled and elderly. they used feathers and bird claws for personal ornamentation. all of these things are very human things. compassion and love are also very human things.

and there’s a reason for this–neanderthals were extremely closely related to us. while recent research has upheld their status as a separate species (homo neanderthalensis) instead of a subspecies of homo sapiens, they could and did interbreed with our anatomically modern human ancestors. almost all modern humans carry a small percentage of neanderthal DNA (about 2% for people of non-african descent).

so yeah, they aren’t quite us. but they’re very, very close.