Inherit the Earth
Nonfiction – by Peter Jekel
Evolution pays no regard to social justice. It is not fair on the Neanderthal that they were replaced by modern humans. Stephen Hawking
Human origins is a branch of anthropological study that is full of mysteries and controversy. The human family tree is probably better described as thick and almost bush-like, with branches leading everywhere, some reaching dead ends and others continuing to grow out. With each new fossil find and interpretation the tree continues to grow in size and complexity. One of the most interesting branches of that tree is the one that includes modern humans (Homo sapiens) and the Neanderthals. They are on the same branch, but the controversy lies in how that branch is interconnected.
As if to emphasize the controversy, until recently the Latin name for Neanderthals was interchangeable and could be either Homo neanderthalis or Homo sapiens neanderthalsis, depending on who was doing the research. In the first name, there is the claim that Neanderthals are an entirely separate species of humans. In the second name, however, the distinction is not there; they are classed as a subspecies of modern humans. Scientific intrigue and speculation is what science fiction is all about, and the tales that have been told about this ancient human are many with several being classics of the genre.
What is known is that Neanderthals lived in Eurasia from around two hundred to forty thousand years ago. It is also generally agreed that they arose in Europe and from there spread towards central Asia. A skeleton was first discovered in 1856, in the Neander Valley in Germany’s Rhineland near modern day Dusseldorf, hence the name. The skeleton was first described to the scientific community by English-Irish geologist, William King, who, in 1863, gave it the name Homo neanderthalensis. A year later he changed his mind and indicated that the specimen was more closely related to a chimpanzee. What caused this change of heart may never be truly known. Fortunately the original name of King stuck since another proposal that came out was from German biologist and popularizer of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, Ernst Haeckel, who in 1866, named the specimen Homo stupidus.
Early in the twentieth century, the prevailing view of Neanderthals as subhuman or simian continued with the interpretations of new discoveries. Infamous Scottish anatomist and anthropologist Arthur Keith—infamous not for a good reason as he was what is now classed as a scientific racist. He proposed that there is a scientific justification for racism—and French paleontologist Marcellin Boule further exaggerated the differences between modern humans and Neanderthals instead of focusing on the similarities. In Keith’s case, at least, scientific justice was at hand when the strong proponent of Piltdown man, later turned out to be a hoax in 1953. Boule, however was not taken in by the hoax.
One early science fiction story furthered the early depictions of Neanderthals. A short story by none other than H. G. Wells, written in 1921, entitled The Grisly Folk, described Neanderthals as savages who deserved to become extinct. Interesting that such a horrible tale was written by an otherwise seemingly enlightened author.
Enlightenment began in the 1930’s when researchers focused on similarities rather than differences between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Between 1940 and 1970, the preference for the scientific classification of Neanderthals moved from King’s earlier version of a separate human species to one of being a subspecies of Homo sapiens. In 2010, it was found that not only were the Neanderthals a subspecies of modern humans, they shared genes with a majority of the population of Earth in some way, excluding the people of sub-Saharan Africa. This widespread distribution of Neanderthal genes could have been due to another closely related archaic human that is likely to have bred with their Neanderthal cousins, the Denisovian, which lived mainly in eastern Asia at the same time as Neanderthals inhabited Europe and western Asia. James Rollins, in his novel, The Bone Labyrinth went a step beyond the hybrid theory. In the story, there is a group called the Watchers, which are actually a superior hybrid of humans and Neanderthals.
Several early science fiction writers wrote tales that did not see Neanderthals as the savage beasts. In 1939 L. Sprague de Camp, wrote a short story, The Gnarly Man, which from the title could have depicted a savage primitive, but instead the Neanderthal was depicted in a much more empathetic light. The story is about an immortal Neanderthal (he was hit by lightning and lived on into the modern world) who finds himself as an exhibit in a freak show. In 1958, Isaac Asimov published The Ugly Little Boy, which was later expanded into a novel by Robert Silverberg. The story describes Neanderthals as having a sophisticated culture and language. There are more recent stories that are more sympathetic towards Neanderthals. Perhaps the most famous is Jean Auel’s meticulously researched Earth’s Children series, describing a Homo sapiens female who lives among a Neanderthal band. Canadian Claire Cameron wrote The Last Neanderthal, about the a family of Neanderthals travelling to their annual meeting to find a mate for a daughter. The story is paralleled in the modern day with the pregnant archaeologist who is excavating the Neanderthal family’s final resting place.
Current thinking is that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens evolved from the earlier Homo erectus around three hundred to two hundred thousand years ago. Homo erectus had emerged in the human family tree around 1.8 million years ago and spread throughout Eurasia from their original home in Africa, a true testament to its adaptability. In different areas of its expansive range, it evolved into a number of subspecies including both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. The Neanderthal branch evolved in Europe and spread to Asia whereas, Homo sapiens, evolved further in Africa.
However, like their Homo erectus ancestors, Homo sapiens did not stay put in Africa. They moved out to conquer the world. Neanderthals who had already evolved in Europe spreading to Asia lived concurrently with Homo sapiens upon their arrival in Europe and Asia until the Neanderthal extinction around forty-five to forty thousand years ago.
In contrast to the slimmer invading Homo sapiens, Neanderthals were stockier with bigger bodies and shorter but powerful limbs, likely an adaptation to the preservation of heat in a cold climate; they lived during an Ice Age between 125,000 and 45,000 years ago. Height-wise, they were within the normal range for modern humans but generally were on the shorter end of the spectrum, around 168 centimeters for males and around 156 centimeters for females. This is based on a study that looked at the long bones of fourteen males and seven females, which through a regression analysis can determine height of the individuals. Their skulls were somewhat more elongated than modern human skulls.
Another adaptation for the cold was the structure of their nasal cavities which allowed them to breathe easier in the colder drier conditions of their home. One interesting side-effect of this adaptation though, was that a larger flatter nose affected the musculature of the skull which in turn, gave Neanderthals a weaker bite force than modern humans.
In terms of movement, Neanderthals were different than Homo sapiens. Their stockier bodies with shorter limbs made them better adapted to short distance sprints rather than long-distance running. In support of this, genomic analysis of Neanderthals indicates that they had a higher proportion of fast-twitch muscles ideal for sprinting as opposed to Homo sapiens with their higher prevalence of slow-twitch muscles, better for long-distance running. In terms of gait, however, Neanderthals, contrary to many earlier depictions of them, walked upright no different than you and me.
We remember Ernest Haeckel’s sarcastic and racist idea for the naming of Neanderthals, Neanderthalis stupidis. Ironically, studies have shown that Neanderthals, though they likely had the same cranial capacity at birth as modern humans, by adulthood, their brains were indeed larger, around 1600 cm3 compared with a modern human at around 1400 cm3. Though cranial capacity is a crude measurement tool for intelligence that carried far more weight in Haeckel’s time, it has been found that the brains of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals had the same degree of encephalization (ratio between predicted brain mass for an animal of a given size-this is based on a non-linear regression analysis of a number of animal and human species) so that it is unlikely that one or the other had the edge in terms of intelligence. Interestingly enough, there is at least one tale that looks at this larger cranial capacity as playing a role in the extinction of the Neanderthals. In Joan Dahr Lambert’s 2010 Circles of Stone, a small band of Neanderthals and another subspecies of early Homo sapiens, in order to defeat modern humans, join forces to overcome modern humans invading the Neanderthal homeland. In a sidebar to the story, an interesting theory as to why Neanderthals became extinct was proposed. In spite of the contradiction of the current facts (note that there is not universal acceptance like most theories to describe the human family tree), it was suggested that the Neanderthals were dying out as their larger crania prevented them from reproducing quickly enough; infant heads were too big for women to safely give birth.
There has been speculation that Neanderthals living in their northern world with lesser hours of sunlight might be responsible for lighter skin colour of Europeans. This appears to be the case in that genomic analysis of some Neanderthal specimens has shown reduced activity of the melanocortin 1 receptor alleles, the result being lighter pigmentation. This would be another adaptation to their northern home since the lesser hours of sunlight in the north would make it all that much more important for the inhabitants to maximize their exposure to the vitamin D producing effects of ultraviolet light. Lighter skin allows for that to occur. Lighter pigmentation has been found to not be uniform however, amongst Neanderthal populations. Other studies have shown that groups of Neanderthals from other areas of their range showed evidence of darker hair, skin and eyes than Homo sapiens. Therefore, it is likely that there was some variability in the skin pigmentation of Neanderthals, much like Homo sapiens.
One story describes the bias of the earlier belief that Neanderthals were the source of lighter skin, hair and eyes. Poul Anderson’s The Long Remembering, describes a modern man who is able to mentally travel back in time. In the story he goes back to the time of a remote ancestor who happens to have been kidnapped by the Goblins (Neanderthals). The Neanderthals in the story are described as having the blonde hair and blue eyes.
Neanderthals tended, based on the site evidence as well as very limited genetic evidence, to have lived in relatively small and sparsely distributed groups. The genetic evidence based on one of the largest Neanderthal collections found so far at El Sidron in northern Spain, shows that males tended to stay within their social grouping and it was females that wandered outside.
In terms of diet, Neanderthals were more in keeping with what would be expected in a cold climate; they were generally believed to be more carnivorous since in the northern extremes of their range edible plants would have been relatively scarce. As one moves south into their range, however, to around the Mediterranean shorelines, a larger amount of plant material was consumed. In fact, Neanderthals around El Sidron, appeared, using dental tarter analysis, to have been almost entirely vegetarian, eating mainly berries, mosses, berries, nuts and mushrooms. Though the site of El Sidron indicates that the Neanderthals were essentially vegetarian, ironically, there is evidence that they themselves were victims of the ultimate form of carnivore, having been cannibalized around 49,000 years ago. The murderers were likely another Neanderthal group, given the age of the site.
Even though Neanderthals largely had a carnivorous diet in the northern part of their range, the negative bias continued as to the abilities of Neanderthals as hunters; they were thought to have been predominately scavengers. However, this was turned on its head with several discoveries. One was the discovery of pre-Neanderthal spears in Germany. The Schoningen wooden spears, assessed as being around four hundred thousand years old when Homo erectus and other early hominids still lived in Europe, were excavated between 1994 and 1998 along with a cache of over sixteen thousand animal bones. This was well before the appearance of the Neanderthal so that it is reasonable to believe that their descendants, the Neanderthals, would have possessed this technology. In 1999, a Levallois point was found embedded in the vertebrate of a wild ass. Levallois points are made with a specific technique of stone knapping. What is fascinating about the Levallois technique is that, without going into the details, it is extremely effective but would not come naturally since the procedure is counterintuitive thus requiring a teacher of the technique. Though found in the fossil record prior to the appearance of Neanderthals, Levallois points are often associated with the Mousterian industry of stone toolmaking of Neanderthals. In addition, to support the fact that Neanderthals were accomplished hunters comes from isotopes of some Neanderthal bones that indicate that they had a preference for fresh meat, not likely if one were predominately a scavenger.
Though their toolmaking showed some sophistication there is no evidence of any tools to make clothing other than scrapers to clean hides for ponchos or blankets. Early Homo sapiens sites, on the other hand, showed evidence of bone awls and needles.
Tool-making technology was not the only technology that Neanderthals possessed. There is evidence from several Mediterranean sites that Neanderthals actually developed a seafaring technology.
Neanderthals showed another advance over their predecessors; that is, caring for the sick and injured. Good thing too, since it appears that Neanderthals were either very clumsy or led a very risky lifestyle. It has been estimated that of the specimens found so far, around 79% of them show some evidence of major healed trauma. Whether it had some cultural basis, perhaps the way that they hunted, may never be known for certain. (Interestingly enough early Homo sapiens also showed a lot of traumas) What is most important is the fact Neanderthals cared for the injured. This included the use of birch bark tar which acted as a disinfectant. In order to make birch bark tar a recipe had to be followed again requiring some form of communication between teacher and student.
There is ongoing debate on whether or not Neanderthals deliberately buried their dead and if so, whether or not it met any spiritual need. There were early assertions that burials were deliberate and then more recent reexamination of the evidence indicates otherwise. The debate continues to this day.
In spite of the debate around the purpose of Neanderthal burials, they did demonstrate an appreciation of art, with incision-decorated bones, modified eagle talons, seashell beads, pigments and stalagmite ring structures on the interior of caves being some examples of the various creations that appear to have no other function other than as an ornament. Again with so many other things Neanderthal, there is disagreement. On the one side, anthropologists argue that the creation of these items indicate some form of symbolic thought and knowledge transfer whereas others indicate otherwise. Again another debate regarding Neanderthals rages on.
Another indicator that Neanderthals were as advanced as Homo sapiens, is speech. There are, however, scientists who believe that only Homo sapiens are capable of a full language with grammar and symbolism. Whether or not Neanderthals could speak will never be known for sure; however, we can hypothesize the ability to speak from their anatomy as well as the need for complex language coming from the culture that they had developed. We see that there is some need for communication for Neanderthals based on their cultural advances. Did that form of communication mean a spoken language though?
In order to speak, air is forced from our lungs through the larynx, an organ in our throats. The larynx itself is an organ that is made up of ligaments and muscles making up vocal cords. As the air moves through the muscles and ligaments they open and close rapidly, resulting in sounds of many varied frequencies. Since modern apes have vocal cords, scientists extrapolate that early hominids, including Neanderthals, would have had them as well. Unlike humans, though, apes are unable to make the clear and variable frequencies due to the positioning of their hyoid bones.
Even though vocal cords and its musculature and ligaments would not survive the ravages of time, there is a bony component associated with speech, the hyoid bone, that though quite fragile might survive. The hyoid bone is a small bone that sits freely in the front of the throat underneath the lower jaw; however, its small size belies its great function. It acts as an anchor for the ligaments and muscles that are key for speaking as well as swallowing. As luck would have it, a complete hyoid bone from an Neanderthal was found in a specimen known as Kebara 2 from a cave in Israel in 1983.
Using computer models, it has been determined that the Neanderthal hyoid was located in an area of the throat which is anterior to where the modern human hyoid is located. With such positioning, it is possible that Neanderthals could speak, though it would sound somewhat different from Homo sapiens. We will, however, never know whether or not that they did speak. Having the anatomy to do so is in no way a guarantee.
We can see that Neanderthals were probably as advanced culturally as Homo sapiens. It is not implausible to think that short of whatever truly caused their demise, they could conceivably have survived to the modern day but it was Homo sapiens that did indeed inherit the Earth.
What if both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, though, had both survived to more recent times. This was good fodder for science fiction authors. One wrote a novel that looked at Neanderthals and their ability to work within our modern culture. Clifford Simak wrote The Goblin Reservation, in which a Neanderthal named Alley Oop (a name taken after a comic book character) is brought to the future for study. Alley Oop acquires a doctoral degree but is unable to grasp the social norms of society. Paul Levinson wrote the novel The Silk Code, about a group of Neanderthals surviving to the modern day, masquerading as Amish. Philip K. Dick wrote The Simulacra, a story about World War III. In the somewhat complex novel there are a number of sub-settings, one, in which a group of Neanderthals called Chuppers are happy with the nuclear war since it will mean the destruction of their ancient enemy, modern humans. Philip Jose Farmer wrote the novella about a Neanderthal family that survives into the modern day; it is described as a tragedy of a dying species. Terence Hawkins wrote an award-winning book American Neolithic, about a group of Neanderthals that have survived to the modern day in the United States. What makes the book very interesting is that the band finds themselves at the center of a murder investigation and a courtroom clash with Creationism.
Other authors looked at how Neanderthals would survive in the modern world as well; however, they were more often found in remote regions of the Earth isolated from modern humans. Perhaps the first story to deal with this possibility was published in 1935. Edison Marshall wrote Dian of the Lost Land where Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon (modern) humans fight one another in an isolated warm valley of Antarctica. John Darnton wrote about a surviving clan of Neanderthals who live in an isolated area of the mountains of Tajikistan in the aptly titled Neanderthal. In Avram Davidson’s short story, The Ogre, Neanderthals have survived into historical times in a remote valley in sixteenth century Germany.
Perhaps the most interesting novel about Neanderthals surviving into more recent times is Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead as it may have some basis in fact thus making it all that much more tantalizing. It is based on a tenth century manuscript by the ambassador of the Caliph of Baghdad, Ahmad ibn Fadlan. The ambassador was sent on a mission to meet with the king of the Volga Bulgars but unfortunately for him he is captured by Vikings and taken to their northern home to battle the “mist-monsters” or “wendol” a band of savages wearing bear skins; Crichton suggests that the “wendol” are indeed a relic population of Neanderthals. We will never know who the Vikings were fighting but it is fascinating to speculate that their adversaries were Neanderthals.
Other authors have suggested that Neanderthals may not have survived to the modern day, but live on through the possibilities offered by cloning. American short story writer Ted Kosmatka wrote N-words, about a large number of Neanderthals being resurrected by South Korean scientists which subsequently intermarry with modern humans. The husband and wife author team, W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear, wrote Raising Abel, about a resurrected Neanderthal. In the novel, Christian fundamentalist creationists see the Neanderthals as a threat to their beliefs, thus targeting them with assassination; eliminate your problems by destruction. Orson Scott Card wrote the short story, Heal Thyself, about an accidental resurrection of Neanderthals during a medical experiment. Melissa Ferguson wrote The Shining Wall, about dystopian future that has cloned Neanderthals; however these Neanderthals are isolated from modern humans by a shining metal wall.
Other authors wrote entire novel series about the cloning of Neanderthals. British author, Jasper Fforde wrote a series of novels, Thursday Next, about Neanderthals who are brought back via cloning. They are resurrected to act as medical test subjects due to their close relationship with modern humans. Subsequent novels in the series look at the public outcry against this abuse of the cloned Neanderthals, but their roles are still limited to performing low-paying menial jobs. In Jonathan Brookes’ Relic series, the military clone Neanderthals to act as super-soldiers for close combat. The series is not written as a thriller alone, but looks at the morality of the military project.
In Poul Anderson’s The Nest, a Neanderthal lives within a time-traveling colony of people from various time periods including the modern day. It is unique in that the story is told from the point of view of the Neanderthal.
In 2010, genetic evidence showed that Neanderthals rather than being displaced were in fact absorbed into the modern human population through interbreeding. Current genetic data of modern European and Asian populations appear to indicate around 1.5 to 2.1 percent Neanderthal genetic material being present. As we go back further into time, we find the Neanderthal genes are even more abundant. Otzi the Iceman, the oldest known mummy from Europe (dated around 3100 to 3400 BP), showed a higher level of Neanderthal material than modern humans currently living in Europe. The percentage of Neanderthal genetic material is not uniform either, between Europeans and Asians; however, in total about twenty percent of the entire Neanderthal genome survives to this day in the modern human gene pool. No Neanderthal genes, however, have ever been found in Sub-Saharan Africans.
One earlier hybrid theory is somewhat racist in its interpretation. In 1904, Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s bulldog, saw among the Frisians of Europe Neanderthaloid characteristics as having developed independently; in other words, Frisians evolved directly from Neanderthals. Later he relented and indicated that perhaps the Frisians were a result of interbreeding between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. Danish geographer, Hans Steensby however, as early as 1907, proposed a much more moderate idea suggesting the interbreeding of Homo sapiens with Neanderthals leading to all modern humans beings.
Again controversy prevails with the hybridization theory. It has been argued that instead of interbreeding, though, that the similarities and overlapping genetic content, are due to remnants of the common ancestor of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.
One piece of evidence that makes the theory of Neanderthal-Homo sapiens interbreeding not a sure thing is the fact that though over half the world seems to carry DNA from Neanderthals in small proportions, there is no indication of mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) in any modern human population. mDNA is a form of DNA in the energy-producing organelle of cells, the mitochondria, leading many experts to hypothesize that early cells and free-living mitochondria evolved a symbiotic relationship that carried on today into modern animal cells. mDNA is different than cellular DNA in that it is carried only through the matrilineal line. To explain this phenomenon and still support the theory that Homo sapiens interbred with Neanderthals, it would have had to have been a situation where female Homo sapiens interbred with male Neanderthals, but if it happened between female Neanderthals and male Homo sapiens, the progeny may have been born, but born sterile. Interestingly enough, Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Radio, describes a genetic cause of the demise of Neanderthals in the novel that appears to now be threatening modern humans. The “disease” was passed into the modern human genome, laying hidden in our junk DNA, through the hybridization of a Neanderthal and Homo sapiens in the distant past.
An interesting novel, Dance of the Tiger, featuring Neanderthals was written by a paleoanthropologist, Bjorn Kurten. The novel promotes the idea of hybridization between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. According to one critic, none other than the late Stephen Jay Gould, a paleontologist turned science-popularizer, describes the novel as so good that the reader will fail to realize that they are reading a book, that appears almost academic, that covers a lot of ground about the geology, ecology and the era of human-Neanderthal interactions.
If the hybridization theory turns out to be untrue, whatever happened to the Neanderthals? Modern humans arrived 45,000 to 40,000 years ago and Neanderthals died out as a separate subspecies around 41,000 to 40,000 years ago so that there was overlap. Was it a clash that exterminated the Neanderthals? Hunting the Ghost Dancer by A. A. Attanasio describes a clash between the declining Neanderthals and the emerging modern humans. The Inheritors by writer William Golding, more famous for his Lord of the Flies, describes the extermination of the last of the Neanderthals at the hands of Homo sapiens.
Though not likely the cause of the extinction of Neanderthals, there was a supervolcanic eruption, the Campanian Ignimbrite Eruption, that happened in the Mediterranean around the same time that the Neanderthals died out. It may have provided the added push to extinction for Neanderthals, rather than being the sole cause. Why would the Neanderthals be impacted heavily by such an event whereas Homo sapiens living in the same area around the same time were not? There are several other contributing factors that may have played a role.
It is possible that the isolation of Neanderthal groups may have led to their downfall. As they lived in small family units restricting themselves to local resources, Homo sapiens, from the paleontological records, seemed to draw resources from farther afield, thus improving survival advantage.
Another suggestion by Penn State anthropologist Pat Shipman is that the domestication of the dog by modern humans may have given modern humans the upper hand with improved hunting success in a time of need. It has been determined that the gray wolf and the domestic dog began their genomic divergence around forty thousand years ago around the time of the extinction of Neanderthals. Though not completely domestic at this time, they may have followed modern human masters to exploit new territories.
Another train of thought is that if we accept the Out of Africa model for modern humans, they may have brought diseases with them to which the native Neanderthals had no resistance; this is not without merit. This happened when Europeans conquered the New World. In as little as 150 years after the landing of Columbus in the New World, around 95 percent of the Indigenous population had already succumbed to diseases such as measles, smallpox and mumps.
Other science fiction authors have come up with another idea as to why the Neanderthals disappeared—alien interference. Heaven by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen has Neanderthals who wander the stars. Originally they were removed by an alien intelligence for unknown reasons thus resulting in their demise on Earth but allowing them to survive among the stars.
Another way that Neanderthals may survive into modern times in science fiction is through alternate timelines and worlds. Poul Anderson wrote an interesting short story, The Nest, about a Neanderthal living in a time-travelling colony made up of people from different times and places. The Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer, features a Neanderthal character, Kazz, who works with human characters in the series to find the source of the river of this world where all of the dead of Earth find themselves being resurrected. In Stephen Baxter’s Manifold series, Neanderthals exist in an alternate timeline. Baxter also wrote The Lingering Joy which happens to be a sequel to Poul Anderson’s The Long Remembering. In the story, the protagonist embarks on a mission to determine whether or not Jesus’ existence was a single event and if there was a Savior that existed amongst the Neanderthals. S. M. Stirling’s Sky People, describes an alternate universe where Neanderthals live on Venus. Robert Sawyer wrote the Neanderthal Parallax series about an alternate universe where Neanderthals became the dominant species, not humans. During an experiment, a Neanderthal scientist traverses from their world into ours. The Neanderthals are portrayed as empathetic and caring beings, in many ways, morally superior to humans. The master of alternate universes, Harry Turtledove, wrote a novella, Dawn of the Bottomlands, where Neanderthals, known as Strongbrows and humans, known as Highheads, co-exist.
Philip K. Dick wrote The Man Whose Teeth Were Exactly Alike, is about the discovery of a Neanderthal skull in the United States. At first when you look at the author, you might think that you are reading about an alternate universe where Neanderthals made it to the New World. However, it really is not speculative fiction. It is more a tale of intrigue where the skull has been purposely planted on American soil, to fool its discoverer, not unlike the Piltdown Man controversy earlier in the century.
Neanderthals continue to be a controversial topic amongst researchers on a number of fronts including origins, extermination and culture; and science fiction writers have never been far away from advancing their own ideas. They will continue to intrigue us with the various theories as to what they were like and what happened to them. Perhaps most importantly they will make us question our morality for Homo sapiens may actually have been responsible for the extermination of another human species or subspecies, a truly sad legacy.
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