Neanderthals

[GameDaddy]

No one really used bows early on as they simply weren't needed. There was a plentiful amount of Large Herd Animals like Mammoths, Elephants, Giant Sloths, Bison, Buffalo, and Wild Cattle, hence the heavy spears with large flint projectile tips. Trapping and killing an animal was a team project, where the group would isolate and direct one (or more) of the large animals into a cul-de-sac, dead end canyon, deep ravine, force it over a cliff, or direct it to another inaccessible place where they could take turns sneaking up on it and stabbing at it until it collapsed. Then, plentiful amounts of fresh protein for the next week or so. The rest of the meat they dried out to eat later. A small nomadic family group (10-30) could easily get by taking down about four to five big animals a year, supplemented with foraging. Before agriculture, that was the tried and true hunting method. The Giant Sloths being the slowest, were of course, one of the first species to be hunted to extinction.


It was only later, after the biggest animal herds were reduced, that hunters used atl-atls and bows. Bows and Atl-atls are a lot more accurate, use lighter projectiles, are much easier to carry, and have more range than heavy spears (or rocks), making them ideal for hunting mid-sized and small game as well as fast birds. Hunting with rocks was for idiots and homo sapiens... Bows and Atl-atls (as well as rocks) really weren't all that effective versus the largest game animals.

Agriculture only really caught on in an area after all the big game animals were mostly gone and the mid-sized, small game, and birds significantly reduced. Neadertals didn't need writing. They were empathetic to the point of being psychic, spoke in the original common tongue as described accurately in the bible, and were just better at non-verbal communications, than the more predatory homo-sapiens who moved in on their traditional hunting grounds.

I wouldn't give Neandertals a -2 INT in my games, or a -2 DEX, simply because their is no direct evidence to back that up, however I would give them a -2 CHR, as they usually reacted poorly with other humanoid groups whenever they encountered them. Staying in smaller family groups they didn't breed as much as their homo-sapien counterparts (another reason they didn't hunt out all the big wildlife in Northern Europe). They were eventually overrun, in pretty much the same manner as Native Americans were overrun in the much more recent colonization of North and South America (1592-1700 ad).

 

[Dozen]

They were eventually overrun, in pretty much the same manner as Native Americans were overrun in the much more recent colonization of North and South America (1592-1700 ad).

They were? Man, that's... dissapointing. Humanity is dissapointing. Though I guess it makes more sense. I sorta thought we got interbred the "Sapiens meets Neanderthal, the fall in love, etc." way.

 

[Ashtagon]

Oh dear...

No one really used bows early on as they simply weren't needed. There was a plentiful amount of Large Herd Animals like Mammoths, Elephants, Giant Sloths, Bison, Buffalo, and Wild Cattle, hence the heavy spears with large flint projectile tips...

Define "early on". We have reliable evidence of bows existing from 64,000 years ago. That's certainly before my time, and fits the British legal definition of "since time immemorial".

Certainly, large herd animals can be hunted with spears. But they can also be hunted with bows, and I suspect they can be hunted with bows at less personal risk to individual hunters than if the hunters were using spears. Early Man was not stupid; if they had the technology for bows, they would have used them. Therefore, we can suppose the reason bows were not used earlier than they were was not out of some perceived lack of need (even one lost warrior was one too many), but a lack of technology. Early man didn't "need" bows in the same way that modern man doesn't need mobile phones; in both cases, they could get along just fine, but they make the task at hand so much easier.

...Trapping and killing an animal was a team project, where the group would isolate and direct one (or more) of the large animals into a cul-de-sac, dead end canyon, deep ravine, force it over a cliff, or direct it to another inaccessible place where they could take turns sneaking up on it and stabbing at it until it collapsed. Then, plentiful amounts of fresh protein for the next week or so. The rest of the meat they dried out to eat later. A small nomadic family group (10-30) could easily get by taking down about four to five big animals a year, supplemented with foraging. Before agriculture, that was the tried and true hunting method. The Giant Sloths being the slowest, were of course, one of the first species to be hunted to extinction.

Cul-de-sacs are more of a modern invention due to urban architecture. Stone Age hunting techniques tended to take advantage of humanity's greater endurance rather than forcing animals off cliffs or ravines (seriously, you force the elephant off the cliff, then who climbs down to get it? Cliffs aren't that common in areas that have big game anyway.) Humans have an amazing ability to carry on travelling non-stop for hours at a stretch compared to most wild animals.

Incidentally, giant sloths existed only in South America, dying out by about 10,500 years ago (humans arrived there somewhen between 15,000 and 11,000 years ago). Humanity's hunting habits against giant sloths can't really be taken as typical.

It was only later, after the biggest animal herds were reduced, that hunters used atl-atls and bows. Bows and Atl-atls are a lot more accurate, use lighter projectiles, are much easier to carry, and have more range than heavy spears (or rocks), making them ideal for hunting mid-sized and small game as well as fast birds. Hunting with rocks was for idiots and homo sapiens... Bows and Atl-atls (as well as rocks) really weren't all that effective versus the largest game animals.

Stone age man disagrees with you; bows are rather good for animal hunting. These images date from 6000 years ago.

spanish cave paintings (pics) from la valltorta ravine in Historic & Prehistoric Bow Reference Forum

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t202/dantolin/IMG_0642c.jpg

The reason they weren't used earlier was because they hadn't been invented yet, not because they weren't suitable for hunting animals, or because spears were good enough for the job.

Agriculture only really caught on in an area after all the big game animals were mostly gone and the mid-sized, small game, and birds significantly reduced. Neadertals didn't need writing. They were empathetic to the point of being psychic, spoke in the original common tongue as described accurately in the bible, and were just better at non-verbal communications, than the more predatory homo-sapiens who moved in on their traditional hunting grounds.

Agriculture is strictly an invention of H. sapiens. Neanderthal man never did this. The best summary of this sequence of events is in the opening part of Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Also, Neanderthals could probably have made good use of writing, had they acquired the necessary skills.

And "empathic to the point of being psychic". Really? It's a popular trope, but to coin a phrase, [citation needed]

I'm also somewhat surprised about Neanderthal Man speaking "in the original common tongue as described accurately in the bible". My copy of the Bible doesn't mention Neanderthal Man. Or evolution, for that matter. (And let's NOT delve any further into Bible studies please.)

I wouldn't give Neandertals a -2 INT in my games, or a -2 DEX, simply because their is no direct evidence to back that up, however I would give them a -2 CHR, as they usually reacted poorly with other humanoid groups whenever they encountered them. Staying in smaller family groups they didn't breed as much as their homo-sapien counterparts (another reason they didn't hunt out all the big wildlife in Northern Europe). They were eventually overrun, in pretty much the same manner as Native Americans were overrun in the much more recent colonization of North and South America (1592-1700 ad).

 

[Meadyaon]

No one really used bows early on as they simply weren't needed. There was a plentiful amount of Large Herd Animals like Mammoths, Elephants, Giant Sloths, Bison, Buffalo, and Wild Cattle, hence the heavy spears with large flint projectile tips. Trapping and killing an animal was a team project, where the group would isolate and direct one (or more) of the large animals into a cul-de-sac, dead end canyon, deep ravine, force it over a cliff, or direct it to another inaccessible place where they could take turns sneaking up on it and stabbing at it until it collapsed. Then, plentiful amounts of fresh protein for the next week or so. The rest of the meat they dried out to eat later. A small nomadic family group (10-30) could easily get by taking down about four to five big animals a year, supplemented with foraging. Before agriculture, that was the tried and true hunting method. The Giant Sloths being the slowest, were of course, one of the first species to be hunted to extinction.


It was only later, after the biggest animal herds were reduced, that hunters used atl-atls and bows. Bows and Atl-atls are a lot more accurate, use lighter projectiles, are much easier to carry, and have more range than heavy spears (or rocks), making them ideal for hunting mid-sized and small game as well as fast birds. Hunting with rocks was for idiots and homo sapiens... Bows and Atl-atls (as well as rocks) really weren't all that effective versus the largest game animals.

Agriculture only really caught on in an area after all the big game animals were mostly gone and the mid-sized, small game, and birds significantly reduced. Neadertals didn't need writing. They were empathetic to the point of being psychic, spoke in the original common tongue as described accurately in the bible, and were just better at non-verbal communications, than the more predatory homo-sapiens who moved in on their traditional hunting grounds.

I wouldn't give Neandertals a -2 INT in my games, or a -2 DEX, simply because their is no direct evidence to back that up, however I would give them a -2 CHR, as they usually reacted poorly with other humanoid groups whenever they encountered them. Staying in smaller family groups they didn't breed as much as their homo-sapien counterparts (another reason they didn't hunt out all the big wildlife in Northern Europe). They were eventually overrun, in pretty much the same manner as Native Americans were overrun in the much more recent colonization of North and South America (1592-1700 ad).

I do not like the -2 INT as well. The brain of a Neanderthal was a little large then Human IIRC or they are at least as large as a human. I thought I read some where that Neanderthal had some problem with long distance running or something like that. IIRC they had problems speaking do to the position of the hyoid bond.

I have enjoyed the info you have give me on what I have brought up.

So how would I homebrew the Neanderthal to be more correct in 3.5 D&D?

 

[Sekhmet]

[MENTION=80711]GameDaddy[/MENTION] Intelligence is defined as the ability to accrue knowledge and skills, and the collection of information.
The Neanderthal were, to put it bluntly, stupid. While they may have had wisdom, their ability to reason, apply new ideas to old thought, and adapt to new scenarios was very poor.
A -2 (or -4) to Int is reasonable.

 

[GameDaddy]

They were? Man, that's... dissapointing. Humanity is dissapointing. Though I guess it makes more sense. I sorta thought we got interbred the "Sapiens meets Neanderthal, the fall in love, etc." way.

Indeed, All non-Africans have some Neadertal genes. Some more than others. Looking at the profuse amounts of hair I'm accumulating on my arms, legs, and hands as I'm growing older, and without testing,and knowing where I originated, I believe I'm in that category with around 5% of neadertal genetic material.

 

[GameDaddy]

Early man didn't "need" bows in the same way that modern man doesn't need mobile phones; in both cases, they could get along just fine, but they make the task at hand so much easier.

How was it then, that the usefulness of the Bow wasn't shared in the same way that the usefulness of the heavy spear was?

Cul-de-sacs are more of a modern invention due to urban architecture. Stone Age hunting techniques tended to take advantage of humanity's greater endurance rather than forcing animals off cliffs or ravines (seriously, you force the elephant off the cliff, then who climbs down to get it? Cliffs aren't that common in areas that have big game anyway.) Humans have an amazing ability to carry on travelling non-stop for hours at a stretch compared to most wild animals.

Where there wasn't cliffs, V-type traps were used extensively, where a long line of stakes or fencing was put up (in the water, it was rock dams), and the whole tribe would form a line scaring prey into the open side of the V then scaring the prey deeper into the funnel into a pre-designated Kill zone at the narrowest part of the V. The most successful tribes hunted this way ensuring a plentiful supply of fresh protein. When they hunted out an area, they'd move to a new area, and then some years later return to their original hunting grounds after the local fauna had replenished itself. It was a renewable food resource.

The successful lone heroic hunter is a myth, as usually such individuals were either outcasts for committing taboos, or had lost the bulk of their tribe because of a hunt gone bad, or a war with another tribe. All (even the children) were expected to participate and help with the hunt.

Incidentally, giant sloths existed only in South America, dying out by about 10,500 years ago (humans arrived there somewhen between 15,000 and 11,000 years ago). Humanity's hunting habits against giant sloths can't really be taken as typical.

Stone age man disagrees with you; bows are rather good for animal hunting. These images date from 6000 years ago.

In the Americas, it's more like 70-80,000 years ago, give or take a few millenium. The Neandertals disappeared as a race around 35,000 BC. and Big Game saw a sharp decline at the end of the last great ice age some 19,000 years ago. 4,500 BC was the time of the last Wooly Mammoths, so yeah, I could definitely see bows coming into widespread use in heavily hunted areas around 6000 BC.

Also, Neanderthals could probably have made good use of writing, had they acquired the necessary skills.

There was no need for writing. This goes back to them already having everything in their environment to sustain them indefinitely. Without any active forces influencing them, humanity, h. sapiens even more than neandertals, simply isn't motivated to invent and innovate, as there is no reward for spending time doing that that does not exceeds the other rewards already attainable for investing in sustaining the tribe.

"Neanderthals possessed the gene for language and had sophisticated music, art and tool craftsmanship skills, so they must have not been all that unattractive to modern humans at the time."

Reference: All Non-Africans Part Neanderthal, Genetics Confirm : Discovery News

To give you a modern day example, we can already build cars that get 200 MPG or better, no one is doing so however, because there is still plenty of fossil fuels available at a such a low price as to make building such cars an undesirable prospect. Let the gas run out, and then watch what happens.

 

[GameDaddy]

I do not like the -2 INT as well. The brain of a Neanderthal was a little large then Human IIRC or they are at least as large as a human. I thought I read some where that Neanderthal had some problem with long distance running or something like that. IIRC they had problems speaking do to the position of the hyoid bond.

I have enjoyed the info you have give me on what I have brought up.

So how would I homebrew the Neanderthal to be more correct in 3.5 D&D?

The Neadertals lived for much longer durations much closer to the great ice glaciers and sheets, and in the heavy forests than h. sapiens, their bodies actually adapted to tolerate the extreme cold and their limbs (arms and legs) grew shorter (So they could keep their body temperature up by keeping their blood closer). Because they hunted as a group, they didn't need to run as much anyway.

H. Sapiens from Africa on the other hand just had to run a lot more. They had to find water during droughts (which became even more frequent after the development of agriculture when they ruined the land there). They had to outrun big predators like lions and sabre cats, and stampeding herds. In Northern Europe under the Ice shelves you could usually find a tree to climb if a large herd stampeded.

On the speaking problem, I want to quote Ashtagon, because this all ties together:

And "empathic to the point of being psychic". Really? It's a popular trope, but to coin a phrase, [citation needed]

I'm also somewhat surprised about Neanderthal Man speaking "in the original common tongue as described accurately in the bible". My copy of the Bible doesn't mention Neanderthal Man. Or evolution, for that matter. (And let's NOT delve any further into Bible studies please.)

There is no evidence that Neadertals had any troubles communicating with each other. They did have troubles communicating with h. sapiens however, because h. sapiens had developed an advanced language to rapidly communicate information.

The lack of ability to articulate words automatically ensured that Neandertals used their other senses more, so... heightened smell, sight, touch, and listening compared to h. sapien. This is just like a blind man, who automatically is better at hearing minute sounds, and can gauge distance by sound because that blind man can only listen. So yes, empathetic to the point of being almost precognitive or psychic.

This ties in with the common language as well. Gestures, expressions and sounds that everyone understood or comprehended.

While I would need to do a whole lot more research, I believe Neadertals preferred being in a closed society amongst themselves, viewing h. sapiens with some suspicion due to the preference of h. sapiens to raiding into Neandertal territories and hunting grounds. h. sapiens developed cannibalism and fraticide, and war as a response to changing enviromental conditions and depleting their own hunting grounds. I also believe that Neardertals often hunted h. sapiens to drive them out of their territories and were so effective at it, they really motivated h. sapiens into expending extra effort to remove Neandertals from Northern Europe.

Any Appendix N. for Neadertals should include just about any books by the eminent Anthropologist, Marvin Harris.

 

[GameDaddy]

The Neanderthal were, to put it bluntly, stupid. While they may have had wisdom, their ability to reason, apply new ideas to old thought, and adapt to new scenarios was very poor.
A -2 (or -4) to Int is reasonable.

You are confusing Cro-Magnons with Neadertals? Actually Neadertals were much better at creative thinking, and in expressing themselves than h. sapiens. They did the first cave art in their areas(cave art unlike other art survives into the modern day) They adapted to new scenarios just fine, they just didn't adapt to the h. sapien invasion all that well. This goes back to the Native Americans. Do you believe that they are stupid as well?

Also, you would figure that the cradle of technological innovation would be Africa, but it's not, it's Northern Europe. A place that adapted both Eastern and African technologies and improved on them much faster. Prove it's just a coincidence that this all just spontaneously occurred in the last place where Neandertals just happened to live, and I might be inclined to go with your hypothesis and estimates concerning the Northern European population.

 

[Ashtagon]

How was it then, that the usefulness of the Bow wasn't shared in the same way that the usefulness of the heavy spear was?

Well, it was shared among every branch of H. sapiens except for those in Australia and remote islands. That seems pretty shared to me.

I suspect H. neanderthalensis never used bows (or spear-throwers), as they are a level more complex in operation than simple thrown rocks and spears (for one, they require an understanding of spring mechanisms).

Where there wasn't cliffs, V-type traps were used extensively, where a long line of stakes or fencing was put up (in the water, it was rock dams), and the whole tribe would form a line scaring prey into the open side of the V then scaring the prey deeper into the funnel into a pre-designated Kill zone at the narrowest part of the V. The most successful tribes hunted this way ensuring a plentiful supply of fresh protein. When they hunted out an area, they'd move to a new area, and then some years later return to their original hunting grounds after the local fauna had replenished itself. It was a renewable food resource.

The successful lone heroic hunter is a myth, as usually such individuals were either outcasts for committing taboos, or had lost the bulk of their tribe because of a hunt gone bad, or a war with another tribe. All (even the children) were expected to participate and help with the hunt.

I don't recall ever saying early man hunted as individuals. The staked V-traps sound right though.

In the Americas, it's more like 70-80,000 years ago, give or take a few millenium...

That'd be a neat trick. The earliest estimate of humanity in the Americas is 50,000 years ago. The more conservative estimates say 15-20 thousand years ago.

...The Neandertals disappeared as a race around 35,000 BC. and Big Game saw a sharp decline at the end of the last great ice age some 19,000 years ago. 4,500 BC was the time of the last Wooly Mammoths, so yeah, I could definitely see bows coming into widespread use in heavily hunted areas around 6000 BC.

There was no need for writing. This goes back to them already having everything in their environment to sustain them indefinitely. Without any active forces influencing them, humanity, h. sapiens even more than neandertals, simply isn't motivated to invent and innovate, as there is no reward for spending time doing that that does not exceeds the other rewards already attainable for investing in sustaining the tribe.

I'd say being able to produce more food to ensure you have a safety buffer, being able to produce food more reliably, being able to produce food more with less physical danger... these were all very real motivators for innovation that were continuously acting on early man. The written word helped people produce food more efficiently by enabling the passing on of knowledge.

That's quite aside from the cultural benefits of writing.

"Neanderthals possessed the gene for language and had sophisticated music, art and tool craftsmanship skills, so they must have not been all that unattractive to modern humans at the time."

Reference: All Non-Africans Part Neanderthal, Genetics Confirm : Discovery News

To give you a modern day example, we can already build cars that get 200 MPG or better, no one is doing so however, because there is still plenty of fossil fuels available at a such a low price as to make building such cars an undesirable prospect. Let the gas run out, and then watch what happens.

The Neadertals lived for much longer durations much closer to the great ice glaciers and sheets, and in the heavy forests than h. sapiens, their bodies actually adapted to tolerate the extreme cold and their limbs (arms and legs) grew shorter (So they could keep their body temperature up by keeping their blood closer). Because they hunted as a group, they didn't need to run as much anyway.

H. Sapiens from Africa on the other hand just had to run a lot more. They had to find water during droughts (which became even more frequent after the development of agriculture when they ruined the land there). They had to outrun big predators like lions and sabre cats, and stampeding herds. In Northern Europe under the Ice shelves you could usually find a tree to climb if a large herd stampeded.

On the speaking problem, I want to quote Ashtagon, because this all ties together:

There is no evidence that Neadertals had any troubles communicating with each other. They did have troubles communicating with h. sapiens however, because h. sapiens had developed an advanced language to rapidly communicate information.

We know neanderthal man had language, used stone tools, built dwellings using stone and bone (probably also used wood and grass roofing). They had fire, and cooked (gathered, not farmed) vegetables. We also know they would nurse sick and injured members of their community. They buried their dead.

Current theories suggest they had some kind of language. It is very improbable that they had a single unified language across the entire species; there isn't even a theoretical basis for this. They lived in communities of 5-10 individuals.

And H. sapiens did all of the above too, except for living in bigger communities. And we have zero reliable evidence that H. sapiens is in any way psychic.

The lack of ability to articulate words automatically ensured that Neandertals used their other senses more, so... heightened smell, sight, touch, and listening compared to h. sapien. This is just like a blind man, who automatically is better at hearing minute sounds, and can gauge distance by sound because that blind man can only listen. So yes, empathetic to the point of being almost precognitive or psychic.

Given that they could talk and had language, I'm not sure the above paragraph has any meaning.

Neanderthals did have language and were able to speak. Their language was probably a vast array of hyper-local dialects, mutually intelligible across short distances, but unintelligible if you tried to get two individuals from a few hundred miles apart to talk.

This ties in with the common language as well. Gestures, expressions and sounds that everyone understood or comprehended.

We know that wild chimpanzees from opposite sides of Africa use gesture-based communication. We also know that different tribes of chimpanzees have different gesture "languages". Why should Neanderthals be unique in having a unified set of gestures across their entire species when every other species on the planet that has some kind of communication system has regional dialects?

While I would need to do a whole lot more research, I believe Neadertals preferred being in a closed society amongst themselves, viewing h. sapiens with some suspicion due to the preference of h. sapiens to raiding into Neandertal territories and hunting grounds. h. sapiens developed cannibalism and fraticide, and war as a response to changing enviromental conditions and depleting their own hunting grounds. I also believe that Neardertals often hunted h. sapiens to drive them out of their territories and were so effective at it, they really motivated h. sapiens into expending extra effort to remove Neandertals from Northern Europe.

I'd be interested in a cite that conclusively showed that neanderthals did not also practice war, fratricide, and cannibalism. I've personally witnessed fratricide in apes in the wild in Africa, so it isn't unique to humanity. Yeah, apes are pretty inhumane