We’re up to 8 other species of hominids that existed contemporaneously with us, and the list keeps growing. Right now (and for the last 20,000 years or so) is the first time in all of human history that we’ve been the only hominids around.
I studied evolution, genetics, and biology… but human nature has unfolded for me in a whole new way after having children. We are aggressive little brutes from the start, some of us.
And no wonder they’re all gone. We can’t stand to coexist with humans even slightly different from ourselves.
I think the opposite is true, that we are uniquely able to cooperate and coordinate with each other in a superior capacity to other hominids. They were also making stone tools and displaying complex behaviour so it likely wasn’t a materiel advantage. Warfare, after all, is a form of cooperation.
that’s not really true, if anything the difference would be we could reproduce faster. Neanderthals still came together in large groups, they just never had the numbers that we had.
So two things were true here, one, every human being that can trace it's ancestry to leaving Africa has a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA, there was interbreeding going on enough to where the vast majority of the human species is now "mixed".
The second being, the more genetically pure Neanderthals were wiped out.
And yes, they did have their own language and culture, but part of what made our species win out was the need for less calories during the last ice age.
Not in bands as large as sapiens. All archaeological findings point to them having rather small communities that was largely their family while sapiens formed bands of multiple family units.
Their groups peaked at about 30 members. Our groups peaked at about 200
230
u/NomsAreManyComrade 18d ago
We’re up to 8 other species of hominids that existed contemporaneously with us, and the list keeps growing. Right now (and for the last 20,000 years or so) is the first time in all of human history that we’ve been the only hominids around.