Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 9635593" data-attributes="member: 6787503">It isn't my intention to force a strict alignment between the <ahem> elements I've brought up, but I can see how my post might have given that impression, which is unfortunate. The reason I made the post, given the four Middle Pleistocene hominin groups mentioned (if the "Neander-sovans" are considered as a single group based on their common ancestry), was to express the idea that it might be possible to draw correspondences between them and the four "elemental" groups of Paracelsus and thus to the figures of folklore and fantasy.The chart at the end of my post was an attempt to flesh out that idea, but I agree it was done somewhat hastily and without enough consideration of available evidence. Given that I'd already decided to assign elves to our species and gnomes and dwarves to the Neandersovan group, it was basically just an exercise in associating the remaining two categories of hominins with Paracelsus's air and fire peoples which he describes as both being "longer" than humans but with the implication that the sylphs are larger than the salamanders.I did have reasons for my decision, but they weren't stated in my post, and they weren't what I'd consider very good or compelling reasons. In one case, they were based on false information. For Homo longi, I couldn't resist associating "Dragon Man" with the group that includes kobolds and is more generally associated with fire. The high robusticity of this species also aligns with Paracelsus's description of the fire people and conceptions of orcs in general, at least many modern ones. The Hualong Cave, where the Hualongdong people were discovered, also has the dragon element, so it's a wash as far as reasons go to associate one group or the other. For my association of the group that includes the Narmada Human with the group that includes treants and ogres, I was influenced by the description found in the Wikipedia article of a "sagittal crest" as being a feature of the Hathnora calvarium, a feature I would associate in hominids with a plant-based diet as can be seen in gorillas or the robust australopithecines (Paranthropus). This, to me, was suggestive of ents whom I don't imagine as being meat eaters. However, the terminology in the article is incorrect, and the unique trait identified by anthropologist K. A. R. Kennedy in his 2007 article "The Narmada Fossil Hominid" was a "furrowed sagittal ridge" and not a crest, per se. Therefore, after comparing estimated heights for the various groups, I've reconsidered this decision, as you suggest, based on the relative proportions and statures of the groups in question.There is no doubt that Homo longi, as constituted by Christopher Bae, represents a highly robust group of individuals. According to Wikipedia, the Harbin skull is "the longest archaic human skull to date" as well as having "the longest brow ridge", and the Jinniushan hominin, with an estimated body mass of around 78.6 kg (173 lb), is "the largest female specimen ever discovered in the fossil record." So I've decided to switch the assignments made in my first post and have revised my chart below, including the average estimated heights of the populations in question:<table style='width: 100%'><tr><td style='width: 33.4059%'>Population</td><td style='width: 33.1882%'>Average estimated height</td><td style='width: 33.3333%'>Associated D&D species</td></tr><tr><td style='width: 33.4059%'>Homo sapiens (Modern humans)</td><td style='width: 33.1882%'>(pre-neolithic) male: 5' 6" female: 5' 2"</td><td style='width: 33.3333%'>Humans and Elves</td></tr><tr><td style='width: 33.4059%'>Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals)</td><td style='width: 33.1882%'>male: 5' 5" female: 5' 1"</td><td style='width: 33.3333%'>Dwarves</td></tr><tr><td style='width: 33.4059%'>Homo juluensis (incl. the Xujiayao hominin, Xuchang Man, and the Denisovans)</td><td style='width: 33.1882%'>"Neanderthal-like build"</td><td style='width: 33.3333%'>Gnomes</td></tr><tr><td style='width: 33.4059%'>Homo longi ("Dragon Man", incl. Dali Man and the Jinniushan hominin)</td><td style='width: 33.1882%'>female: 5' 6"</td><td style='width: 33.3333%'>Treants and Ogres</td></tr><tr><td style='width: 33.4059%'>The Narmada Human, Maba Man, and the Hualongdong people</td><td style='width: 33.1882%'>male: 5' 5" female: 5' 3"</td><td style='width: 33.3333%'>Orcs, Goblinoids, Kobolds, and Brownies</td></tr></table></blockquote>

Verification