Age of Hominids: The Four Races

At one point in time there were a lot of human species. What if some survived without going extinct or interbreeding, and eventually developed civilizations? The four races I have in mind are Humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Homo Floresiensis. There would be interspecies alliances based on location. I'm thinking that Humans and Neanderthals would be allies based on hunting. Humans use their skills in persistence hunting to chase animals into the Neanderthals's ambushes and traps. Later on and farther East Denisovans build simple boats and spread from Indonesia to the Solomon islands, where the distance becomes too great for their boats. H. Floresiensis comes to the rescue by following the Denisovans with better boats. The two become allies and continue through Polynesia.
 
What about nations. Obviously they form, and probably old human hatred for every living thing that is not them will shine through, and species duke it out until there is only one species left, or until one enslaves the other. Besides, how can an entire species ally with another. I can see "alliances" being localised, but humans are to petty to work entirely with each other, let alone an entire separate species.
 
I meant that groups start working together. I guess I should reword that. Besides, historically humans didn't just wantonly kill the other hominids, they just happened to have the right adaptions at the right time. As for nations, I was thinking that the most sedentary groups of each species develop civilizations at river valleys close to where they originated. Neanderthal civilization originates in Mesopotamia and Greece. Humans learn agriculture from Neanderthals and farm the Nile. As for the rest, I need suggestion.
 
I could king of see it playing out like this: Humans and Neanderthals working in massive co-operation "colonize" all of Europe, Africa and the middle east. Interbreeding is common so both species must come to the belief that they are not separate species. Meanwhile, the Denisovians living in Siberia cross the land bridge into America, thus staying separate until discovered millennia later. However, some Denisovians travel down through into present day Indonesia, and colonize the islands you mentioned. They interbreed with the local populace of Floresiensis, and using superior technology, colonize further into Polynesia.
 
Well, the first question you need to address is, how do you keep these species alive?

In the case of the Neanderthals, you might achieve this by having a meteorological POD, where the forests of Europe aren't replaced by grasslands. This POD might be enough to save the other two (we don't know exactly why they went extinct anyways, so it's a fair shot).

But then you need to wonder, what will keep them alive? They need stable populations that can withstand the pressures of Homo sapiens. (You might also get some hybrid populations here and there).

Also, why would any species (assuming these species can advance into civilizations) ally with another? What would be the benefit in it?

I had a TL a few years ago in the ASB section, I suggest you give it a look for ideas. It was called Homo hedrensis: A Different Man. It examined a world in which Neanderthals survived to the modern day, and what that meant for us and our relationship with them.
 
It has been found that Neanderthals had a gene causing them to be content with their surroundings, and humans had a gene that did just the opposite. If humans and Neanderthals interbred, then these unique genes could cancel each other out. As for H. Floresiensis and Denisovans, we don't even know what killed them. Perhaps they just manage their populations better.
 
Part of the problem with this premise is we know that Neandertals and Denisovans, at least, could freely interbreed with Homo Sapiens. So even if you get them to survive humans migrating out of Africa, all these groups mix to some degree so you're not really going to have different species.

After dealing with the late Paleolithic migration of modern humans out of Africa, the biggest issue will be the adoption of Agriculture. if it happened in the Middle East, as IOTL, and modern humans invented it, Neandertals would end up being displaced/hybridized through much of the old world, much as it now looks like half of modern European DNA (at minimum) comes from Middle Eastern farmers.
 
I could king of see it playing out like this: Humans and Neanderthals working in massive co-operation "colonize" all of Europe, Africa and the middle east. Interbreeding is common so both species must come to the belief that they are not separate species. Meanwhile, the Denisovians living in Siberia cross the land bridge into America, thus staying separate until discovered millennia later. However, some Denisovians travel down through into present day Indonesia, and colonize the islands you mentioned. They interbreed with the local populace of Floresiensis, and using superior technology, colonize further into Polynesia.

Not a bad idea.

It has been found that Neanderthals had a gene causing them to be content with their surroundings, and humans had a gene that did just the opposite. If humans and Neanderthals interbred, then these unique genes could cancel each other out.
Good point.

So even if you get them to survive humans migrating out of Africa, all these groups mix to some degree so you're not really going to have different species.
If some of the groups are isolated, they will not mix. I can't see the Flo surviving for long, but a Denisovian/Flo species might remain in isolation in Polynesia/Melanesia/Australia/possibly America.
 
What if Neanderthals had a hostile isolationist view of humans, and this acted as a wall across the middle east, keeping them from the rest of the world.
 
What about diseases? Can they be easily spread between the human species. Take a disease only located in humans, like smallpox. Could this disease which ravaged humanity be transferred over into a Neanderthal population and if so, what would be the effects of it.
 
Part of the issue I would have here is that homo sapiens are way, way smarter than the others. At some point - after technology has progressed to the city-building stage, the other races are going to be somewhat disenfranchised, even if there's no racial bias. If a Neanderthal can't do math, but is very strong, then you've got a labor underclass already. Of course, maybe Neanderthals are just as happy doing the heavy lifting and letting all those puny Homo Sapiens do the thinking that gets them urban luxuries (like running water).
 
Part of the issue I would have here is that homo sapiens are way, way smarter than the others. At some point - after technology has progressed to the city-building stage, the other races are going to be somewhat disenfranchised, even if there's no racial bias. If a Neanderthal can't do math, but is very strong, then you've got a labor underclass already. Of course, maybe Neanderthals are just as happy doing the heavy lifting and letting all those puny Homo Sapiens do the thinking that gets them urban luxuries (like running water).

Come on, Neanderthals had a cranial capacity along the same line as ours, and whilst I know that cranial capacity isn't a clear indicator for intelligence, it has been proven that Neanderthal's had human like intelligence, and advanced culture, so I don't see being too happy as the labourers and/or slaves.
 
Also Floresiensis developed advanced tools before humans had tools like that.

Because they evolved sooner. I think that while all four of the races you mention could develop basic tools, I think all of them except Homo Sapiens are 'capped'; i.e. they get the tools, but go no (or not much) further. Modern humans, on the other hand, are not.

There probably would be been a several-thousand-year period of technical parity, but as Homo Sapiens develop, and the others can't keep pace, then Homo Sapiens become the dominant race. Brainpower is the greatest force-multiplier evolution ever came up with (just ask a Bengal Tiger facing a Remington rifle) and if the other races are not only not capable of coming up with the ideas, but incapable of even utilizing them if gleaned from Homo Sapiens, then what do you have? A more-or-less permanent slave class of laborers. Given hjow nasty Homo Sapiens are to each other, it strikes me as near-implausible that the under-races of your world would fare all that well.

I'm not trying to kill your idea - I'd love to see a TL where perhaps a 'kinder gentler' humanity prospers together (oh, and throw in some Gigantapithicus Blacki in for fun) - I just think you have some challenges in overcoming the growing gaps in capability between the races.

Mike Turcotte
Mike Turcotte
 
It has been found that Neanderthals had a gene causing them to be content with their surroundings, and humans had a gene that did just the opposite. If humans and Neanderthals interbred, then these unique genes could cancel each other out. As for H. Floresiensis and Denisovans, we don't even know what killed them. Perhaps they just manage their populations better.

I'd like to see a source for this. It seems hard to tell from a gene what an entire species/ culture's world view is.

Part of the problem with this premise is we know that Neandertals and Denisovans, at least, could freely interbreed with Homo Sapiens. So even if you get them to survive humans migrating out of Africa, all these groups mix to some degree so you're not really going to have different species.

After dealing with the late Paleolithic migration of modern humans out of Africa, the biggest issue will be the adoption of Agriculture. if it happened in the Middle East, as IOTL, and modern humans invented it, Neandertals would end up being displaced/hybridized through much of the old world, much as it now looks like half of modern European DNA (at minimum) comes from Middle Eastern farmers.

This. Whoever invents farming (which will be Sapiens, because as far as we know, they are the only hominid mentioned that both has the ability to farm, and the desire to do so having an appetite for vegetables) will have a population boom that will in all likelihood result in some serious interbreeding.

What if Neanderthals had a hostile isolationist view of humans, and this acted as a wall across the middle east, keeping them from the rest of the world.

You act as though Neanderthals will create one single nation state in a pre-civilization era where every hominid ever lived in family-based groups or tribes. Some tribes will hold this view, others won't, and it is impossible to get a confederacy of all Neanderthal peoples, not to mention doing so during the Ice Age.

What about diseases? Can they be easily spread between the human species. Take a disease only located in humans, like smallpox. Could this disease which ravaged humanity be transferred over into a Neanderthal population and if so, what would be the effects of it.

This might be a good POD. A genetic twist here and there in bacteria is easy enough to pull off realistically, and if this disease reacts especially badly in Homo sapiens, you've just bought the other human species a lot of time.

Part of the issue I would have here is that homo sapiens are way, way smarter than the others. At some point - after technology has progressed to the city-building stage, the other races are going to be somewhat disenfranchised, even if there's no racial bias. If a Neanderthal can't do math, but is very strong, then you've got a labor underclass already. Of course, maybe Neanderthals are just as happy doing the heavy lifting and letting all those puny Homo Sapiens do the thinking that gets them urban luxuries (like running water).

1st, Neanderthals were of an equal intelligence to modern man. There may have been some differences in abstract thinking, but how different is debatable.

2nd, we have never found a Denisovan skull, so we don't even know how intelligent they were.

3rd, Neanderthal would not make ideal slave labor, they'd tire far too quickly. That is one of their main faults as a species and one of the contributing factors to their extinction- they had poor stamina. We can tell this by examining their skeletons. A Sapiens-Neanderthal hybrid people might work out, and it's a pretty dark place to go, but it's possible.

Also Floresiensis developed advanced tools before humans had tools like that.

Again, I'd like to see a source. As far as I've read, Homo floresiensis never developed tools past what Homo erectus was capable of creating.
 
What about diseases? Can they be easily spread between the human species. Take a disease only located in humans, like smallpox. Could this disease which ravaged humanity be transferred over into a Neanderthal population and if so, what would be the effects of it.

This is better than my dumb idea about isolationist Neanderthals, I think a humans-only disease would work to hold them back. Perhaps there is some room for creative liscense in the fact that we don't know much about these hominids.
 
The whole problem with any kind of co-operation between hominid species is that it would lead to massive interbreeding. Unless the POD is that the various hominids are not capable of interbreeding, then that would almost certainly cause the various species to be absorbed into h. sapiens before the rise of civilization.

You know, what happened OTL.

The only way to guarantee Neanderthal survival is to get their ancestors into Europe, then keep everybody else out forever. Neanderthals were highly adapted to ice age conditions, and when those disappeared, they simply couldn't compete with us.

Homo Floresiensis could expand to other islands, perhaps colonize the rest of Indonesia. If they could get to New Zealand, that would probably guarantee their survival to modern times.

As for the Denisovans, I don't know nearly enough about them to comment. Perhaps if they made it to China first, then established a permanent population? If the population would be large enough, then any sapiens migrants would be absorbed into the Denisovans.

(BTW, not trying at all to discourage you. I've considered this POD before, and if you do end up writing a timeline I'll certainly follow it)
 
I now that Floresiensis, being evolved directly from Homo Erectus, would probably be impossible to interbreed with. I think that a good way to preserve Neanderthals would be to have a large amount of ice age fauna survive in Europe. For other hominids these animals would be too dangerous to live near.

I also think that so little is known about Denisovans that we can use a creative liscense to fill in the gaps.
 
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