Neandertal's? 'dem dere's orcs!!!

[radferth]

And earlier today there was a special on dragons during which it was postulated that those creatures of fantasy may have had their roots in our ancestral genetic fears of our three primoridal predators - snake, big cats and birds of prey (apparently eagles have attacked and killed children as old as 6 before - did not know that).

I just realized that these big three (raptors, snakes, bigcats) don't very well describe the predators a prehistoric human would face (we kinda outgrew the first two a while back), they do describe the predators a typical monkey has to contend with. So if there is something primal about people being afraid of dragons, it goes way, way, way back. (The other predator that eats lots o' monkeys is apes/humans, but we had by definition evolved away from monkeys by the time that one came up).

Ace: D'oh, I forgot Steve Jackson wrote TFT. I've met him before, the piltdown/orc thing was definitely a joke/fantasy element.

In parting, I would like to say that I thought those bear-neandrathal guys from 13th warrior were quite scary, until I realized that they were not called the windoo as I had misheard but the wendel. Don't know why I felt compelled to share that, but there it is.

 

[loki44]

Didn't someone recently uncover "halfling" remains in Indonesia (I think it was there)?

[Edit] Yes, here' a link to an article about the find:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10010714

 

[Zander]

I'm not so sure about the dwarves and Jews connection either; Tolkien himself referenced that only in regard to the dwarves having undergone a Diaspora and exile from their homeland(s) that paralleled the Jewish condition prior to the re-establishment of the state of Israel in the middle of this century. Other than that, I don't think there's anything particularly Jewish-like about the dwarves at all.

When Tolkien said

I do think of the 'Dwarves' like Jews

, he didn't just mean it in terms of migration but also in terms of use of language. Tolkien derived many of his Middle Earth cultures from real world languages. While dwarven character names are Icelandic, some dwarven place names are vaguely Hebraic. Furthermore, the dwarves conformed to some stereotypes of Jews that were commonly held in England when Tolkien was growing up such as that Jews are hirsute, keep to themselves, are untrusting, argumentative and avaricious but fundamentally benign.

I'm not trying to say my orcs = Huns interpretation is rock-solid or "factual", just that I think it makes a better case than orc = Japanese, and that I favor it. The orc = Japanese interpretation requires you to directly contradict what Tolkien has said about his work, for one thing (that there was no real-world correspondence with WW2) while the Huns picture has a few things going for it...

There are no genuine Uruks, that is folk made bad by the intension of their maker; and not many who are so corrupted as to be irredeemable (though I fear it must be admitted that there are human creatures that seem irredeemable... and that there are probably abnormally many such creatures in... Nippon...)

- my emphasis.

[Orcs] are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least loved Mongol-types.

When the facts that Tolkien regarded the Japanese as both less redeemable than Uruk-hai and looking like orcs are taken together, it suggests quite strongly that orc = Japanese. It is at least as plausible as the hypothesis that orc = Hun, if not more so.

 

[Zander]

Sorry, I'm bumping this.

 

[Particle_Man]

For what it is worth, I tracked down the Show: It was "Quirks and Quarks" Sept. 21, 1996. I have ordered the CD and will determine for myself whether or not it is scaaaaaaaaary sounding.

 

[Desdichado]

When Tolkien said , he didn't just mean it in terms of migration but also in terms of use of language. Tolkien derived many of his Middle Earth cultures from real world languages. While dwarven character names are Icelandic, some dwarven place names are vaguely Hebraic. Furthermore, the dwarves conformed to some stereotypes of Jews that were commonly held in England when Tolkien was growing up such as that Jews are hirsute, keep to themselves, are untrusting, argumentative and avaricious but fundamentally benign.

Extremely vaguely similar, in terms of linguistics anyway. Dwarvish apparently uses a three consonent radical, and words change context and structure by changing the vowels, i.e. Kh-Z-D for dwarf--Khazâd for "dwarves, Khuzdul for "dwarvish" and *Khuzd for "dwarf." However, Hebrew is certainly not the only language that does that, and Dwarvish is apparently not very developed.

- my emphasis. When the facts that Tolkien regarded the Japanese as both less redeemable than Uruk-hai and looking like orcs are taken together, it suggests quite strongly that orc = Japanese. It is at least as plausible as the hypothesis that orc = Hun, if not more so.

I wasn't aware of that letter. That is something.

 

[Voadam]

And earlier today there was a special on dragons during which it was postulated that those creatures of fantasy may have had their roots in our ancestral genetic fears of our three primoridal predators - snake, big cats and birds of prey (apparently eagles have attacked and killed children as old as 6 before - did not know that).

Anyway, put my mind to wondering what other fantastical creatures have their roots in our ancestral experience and ancestral failure to recognize phenomena for what they are.

For instance, Griffons (and many other ancient mythical beasts) may have their origins in vastly misinterpreted dinosaurs.

If you postulate that dragons are a combo of ur predator snake, big cat, and bird of prey, why would the griffon not also be a combo of big cat and bird of prey?

 

[William_2]

While watching the History Channel's Ape to Man special the Neandertals they presented struck me as awful... uhm...

Orc - like.

And earlier today there was a special on dragons during which it was postulated that those creatures of fantasy may have had their roots in our ancestral genetic fears of our three primoridal predators - snake, big cats and birds of prey (apparently eagles have attacked and killed children as old as 6 before - did not know that).

Anyway, put my mind to wondering what other fantastical creatures have their roots in our ancestral experience and ancestral failure to recognize phenomena for what they are.

For instance, Griffons (and many other ancient mythical beasts) may have their origins in vastly misinterpreted dinosaurs.

Maybe our legends about orcs and the like contains some tiny remnant or our experiences and battles with Neandertals to conquer Europe.

Has anyone ever thought about have neandertal *be* the orcs of their campaign? It's an interesting thought.

Also, how far apart *really* should the fantasy races be? In particular - what of elves, who are normally held to be more noble and - in some ways - human than ourselves (indeed, in many campaigns elves are merely idealized humans rather than a race unto themselves).

Ok - there's my blather - discuss, but please remeber to be careful with your posts in this thread. It touches on the subject of evolution - and we all know how that particular scientific concept can go south in a hurry. Please do not steer it anywhere ugly.

Hello,

This is probably well known here, but I don’t see it mentioned, so I will mention it: this notion is the basic premise of Michael Crichton’s novel Eaters of the Dead. The 13th Warrior movie, based on it, depicts some sort of cave people as the Wendol. Crichton is quite explicit in the novel, however, that he wanted to address the idea that encounters with late surviving pockets of Neanderthals might perhaps have been the basis for legends of Trolls and such creatures. Grendel, for example, as the other notion used in the book is that sagas such as Beowulf might be viewed as literary treatments of somewhat realistic events.

Trolls, Orcs, whatever – I don’t think the name is the point here, but the idea that some relation between early hominids and myths about other races might possibly exist. It seems very appealing for fiction and gaming use, in particular. For it to work in gaming, though, I would think that you would have to not have actual other races running around as well, really.

The relation of fossils and odd sea-borne remains to tales of mythical creatures is an interesting topic, too.

 

[Orius]

Some people have speculated that distant memories of Neanderthals may have been the ultimate source for mythological and legendary creature like the Nephilim. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim#Nephilim_in_parahistory There's not a lot of hard proof for this, and it's a lot of speculation, but I don't really have any problems with distant half-forgotten memories of Neanderthals and other now extinct creatures being the source of various mythological beings.

And that Parasaurolophous sound was not at all scary.