Age of Hominids: The Four Races

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.

What's to keep Sapiens from killing them all like OTL, either through disease, hunting, or competition for food? The reasons why Sapiens wasn't compatible with Ice Age fauna wasn't because they were too deadly for us to handle, there are lions, elephants, and other megafauna in Africa (and there was in the Middle East until recently), it's that we were too deadly for them. Much of Europe's mega fauna continued to exist for the 20,000 years we coexisted with them, until around 10,000 BC when the climate changed. We caused a new pressure that, on top of climate change, they weren't able to cope with after the Younger Dryas.
 
What if North Africa became a hellish desert sooner than in OTL, forcing humans to stay in south Africa instead of migrating out and spreading over the world.
 
The Nile is just one river, it would take a long time for a significant population of humans to get out, they would probably just be absorbed into the Neanderthals.
 
The Nile is just one river, it would take a long time for a significant population of humans to get out, they would probably just be absorbed into the Neanderthals.

Considering that Homo sapiens evolved in and around modern day Ethiopia, and that they penetrated the Middle East before some parts of Africa... no, the Nile is still going to allow them access to the outside world. And the Nile isn't just one river, it is the longest river in the world, a cradle of civilization, and without it humanity in all its forms is likely to have never existed.

I really think the disease route is the best one to take. Geological PODs get really messy really fast.
 

ingemann

Banned
Neanderthal adopted the Cro Magnons tool packet at the end of their existence, this show us two thing, Neanderthal was not only able to reproduce with Cro Magnon (which could just as well be a case of a few rapes), they was also able to interact peacefully with Cro Magnons and was able to learn very complex task. This indicate that they had a intelligence at around the same stage as modern humans. As Denisovan was relative closely related to Neanderthals, we can likely expect the same from them. Hobbits on the other hand used a significant more primitive tool packet and had a much smaller brain (brain size isn't everything, but you need size for getting the raw computing power we have) and nothing seem to indicate that they have adopted anything from our tool packet. So I find it unlikely that they will be able to advance fast enough to survive as more than primitive forest men (they may in fact have survived much longer than we expect, as there are modern tale about them, if we in fact found a living example today it would be surprising, but not a big shock).

So we have next problem. Neanderthal are not build for cereal agriculture, they had a strong build based on strong low stamina muscle. This mean that the back breaking labour of cereal agriculture would fit badly with them. This mean that agriculture need to be redesigned to be much less labour intensive. The solution here are agriculture building on nuts, fruits and berries. It demand a lot more patience and time to set such agriculture up, but it could in fact develop natural, it would just demand a relative stable climate and that Europe avoided being deforested. Physical agricultural Neanderthal would select for much less robust build (as the move to agriculture did for us too) and higher stamina, through they will stay stronger than us, but with less stamina.
 
Yeah, the disease route is probably the best, I wonder how big the genetic differences between the hominids would have to be for that to work. It would be a pretty big stretch to put humans in the same situation that native Americans were in.
 
Yeah, the disease route is probably the best, I wonder how big the genetic differences between the hominids would have to be for that to work. It would be a pretty big stretch to put humans in the same situation that native Americans were in.

Well, Native Americans and Europeans are the same species, so, not really. Have different species adapted to different immunities, you can definitely do some damage. If it was an STD, that would really put a stop to human interbreeding, if you wanted to go that route.
 
Neanderthals could skip straight to animal based agriculture, it's not that big of a stretch. Maybe Neanderthals could adopt the farming of grains from humans to feed their animals. And anyway, I'm sure Neanderthals ate wild greens at least occasionally, not very much though. I've even see cats eat grass before.
 
I think that a form of malaria is a good candidate to hold back humans, it thrives in the areas where humans evolved, and is hard to eradicate unless you destroy your own water sources.
 
One of the reasons humans spread so far was because they were a nomadic species. Neanderthals would remain sedentary more than humans and maybe develop a hunting civilization similar to those of many native American tribes.
 
The average Cranial Capacities of Homo neanderthalensis at the time they went extinct was higher than that of Homo sapiens from around the same time. Neanderthals averaged 1,900 cm^3 over Spaiens 1,530 cm^3 at the same time. For the Neanderthals however, this was primarily used for memory as opposed to problem solving.

Should both species survive at the same time they would no doubt begin interbreeding. You could expect that they would have become, by consequence, formed a new, intermixed species by the time we even have this debate. Cranial capacity would likely average 2,250 cm^3 and would likely be twice as dense as we are now. Meaning that this new species would be on average at least twice as intelligent as we are now. I bet that they would have began experimenting with genetic modification by now. And one adaptation they would have likley brought back is a full length, prehensile tail.

This new species would likely call themselves Homo Saiyan.
 
You just made me a fan of interbreeding! Now how would the super-smart Neanderthal-Human hybrids react with the other two hominids?
 
You just made me a fan of interbreeding! Now how would the super-smart Neanderthal-Human hybrids react with the other two hominids?
The way I see it, the Floresiens have little, if anything, to offer modern man, and would likely be wiped out. When discovered by Homo saiyan, they would be seen as little more than smart monkeys. They would not interbreed and could likely use them as a source of food when other sources become scarce. if interbreeding did occur, it would likely only improve basic senses such as eye-sight and hearing. And those "improvements" would be minimal based off of the native hunting habits that come from the Neanderthals.

For the Denisovans, interbreeding would likely become a possibility. But not much more so than what already exists. If anything, it would simply provide for further genetic immunities to multiple diseases that plague humanity as of now. There would likely be the introduction of a third blood type base: C. ABCO blood typing could then allow for further increased immunities to disease. Even such as AIDS. However, because of Denisovan scarcity they wouldn't survive for long and would become entirely subsumed by H. saiyan.

In the end, purebred H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens would still exist in small, isolated communities scattered throughout the globe. Yet as H. saiyans grows they will overtake the remaining populations. I'd give it until roughly *5000 BCE when H. Saiyans begins to civilize. And *1000 ADE when H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis are functionally/entirely extinct.

By *1850 they would begin genetic experimentation within their genome, which in turn could create a new species. Chromosome 24 would contain traits that otherwise wouldn't exist within the human genome: plastid genomes, night vision, IR sensitivity, etc. And then you would have two new species of human. One that was originally created scientifically to produce a species that is far more capable than we are now (physically at least). With the other, parent species, eventually being unable to compete with their own creation.
 
I think that Denisovans could survive if they had managed themselves better, and maybe if they isolated themselves in the new world then they would evolve to be even more different from H. Saiyan. As for Floresiensis, I don't see why humans would wantonly wipe them out. They could hide in caves and survive any genocides easily, anyway.
 
A side affect of their speciation is the potential for hyper-aggression. However, that will likely be brought on as the result of external factors. They won't ALWAYS be hyper-aggressive, but during times of duress, their own survival trumps all else, it could potentially double their strength and allow them to 1v1 Smilidon.
 
I think that Denisovans could survive if they had managed themselves better, and maybe if they isolated themselves in the new world then they would evolve to be even more different from H. Saiyan. As for Floresiensis, I don't see why humans would wantonly wipe them out. They could hide in caves and survive any genocides easily, anyway.

Well, if the Denisovans become sort of neo-Indians, when the Humans or Neanderthals arrive, they would most likely have a better chance at surviving, or they would died in less of a percentage due to the genetic difference disallowing the transfer of some diseases (maybe). Also, what about culture and civilization. Could the Denisovans create advance culture in American, or Asia, or wherever they end up?
 
Part of the problem with this premise is we know that Neandertals and Denisovans, at least, could freely interbreed with Homo Sapiens.

We do not know this at all.

Humans overlapped with Neanderthals for about 20 000 years. That is an awfully long time. 10 years back then was just as long as 10 years now.

While we are fairly certain that there were some successful interbreeding, that does not mean that it was frequent or easy. Horses and donkeys can produce hybrid offspring called mules, which are normally sterile. However, a very few cases of mules which are fertile have been recorded.

There were some significant biochemical differences between humans and Neanderthals.
It is perfectly possible that there were thousands of hybrid pregnancies for every hybrid that survived to breed. In fact, the fact that we stayed as genetically distinct as we did and that evidence of female-line Neanderthal DNA seem absent from humans. indicated that crossbreeding wasn't all that easy.

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

I don't think we know this for sure either. Neanderthals were more capable than what has been previously thought, and researchers are sliding towards a much more favorable view of their intelligence. But they seem to have missed out on a number of human refinements in terms of sea travel, clothing etc. The fact that Neanderthals were outcompeted on their favored continent during a cold snap by a biologically unmodified tropical model indicates that we had quite a bit of adaptivity on them.
 
Top