Another Hominid Survives: Effects on Science and Culture?

Now, I've seen threads that focus on this in obviously larger ways, such as "Neanderthal New World", but that isn't quite what I'm looking for. To kill most of the possible butterflies, and to keep history going as per OTL until fairly recently, let's say a significant population of Homo erectus survives on some isolated Indonesian island. They are hairier than us, shorter than us, have a somewhat more ape-like face, and still live in a Stone Age culture.

They are discovered in the late 1800's by Europeans, perhaps in the expeditions started by Eugene Dubois to find a fossil of the missing link between ape and man. What is the effect on human thought of having a biologically distinct separate species of human still alive during the present day?
 

mojojojo

Gone Fishin'
Now, I've seen threads that focus on this in obviously larger ways, such as "Neanderthal New World", but that isn't quite what I'm looking for. To kill most of the possible butterflies, and to keep history going as per OTL until fairly recently, let's say a significant population of Homo erectus survives on some isolated Indonesian island. They are hairier than us, shorter than us, have a somewhat more ape-like face, and still live in a Stone Age culture.

They are discovered in the late 1800's by Europeans, perhaps in the expeditions started by Eugene Dubois to find a fossil of the missing link between ape and man. What is the effect on human thought of having a biologically distinct separate species of human still alive during the present day?
How vulnerable would they be to human diseases? Would they even survive first contact?
 
How vulnerable would they be to human diseases? Would they even survive first contact?

They are immune to human diseases, and they've been known to the neighboring Indonesian tribes for years, but generally contact is sporadic. In this world, they were the inspiration for something like the Orang Pendek legend.
 

wormyguy

Banned
They'll probably be killed, enslaved, or put in zoos. Sucks for them, especially since they're *actually* genetically inferior in terms of intelligence.
 
Well, I doubt they would be exterminated, because none of our other "relatives" (ie, gorillas, chimps, orangutans) have been killed off. Zoos, maybe. Slavery... I dunno.
 
They'll probably be killed, enslaved, or put in zoos. Sucks for them, especially since they're *actually* genetically inferior in terms of intelligence.

Not necessarily. We (homo sapiens sapiens) could have out-competed our very close homo sapiens relatives because we out-bred them for reasons other than sheer intelligence. Eg the Neanderthals needed more calories than we did, so even if they were just as smart that could've been the disadvantage that doomed them.
 
If they survive contact with us, than it definitely provides a boost to medicine. Using a Homo Erectus or something similar for medical research will be a bit easier than with chimps, and we can probably teach them sign language better so they can communicate how they feel and whats wrong with them after getting a new treatment.
Learning about how they form groups and pass on knowledge will also be a great help in learning about how humans formed society.
And they may be able to be a type of slave or servant. For simple yet dangerous jobs send in an erectus, for menial jobs that no one wants to do have an erectus do it.
 
OK, another quick question.
Say it's somehow proven that the hominids have some sort of rudimentary religion, or at least superstitions. Would any of the major religions, such as Christianity, bother to prosletyze to them?
 
OK, another quick question.
Say it's somehow proven that the hominids have some sort of rudimentary religion, or at least superstitions. Would any of the major religions, such as Christianity, bother to prosletyze to them?
oh heck yes, right after they burn the unrepentant ones
 
If they survived we'd either see them as an odd variety of ape or never have expanded to OTL scale and created civilization in the first place.
 
It really depends on how 250,000 years of evolving seperately from us has turned out. They could be smarter than us or dumber than us, they may or may not have language. What types of tools have they crafted?

If they haven't spread, chances are that they're less intelligent, though it could be that we outcompeted them in some other way. What scares me is that the discovery of a human clearly of another species in the late 1800s will REALLY bolster eugenics, probably with lots of very bad results
 

Maur

Banned
Not necessarily. We (homo sapiens sapiens) could have out-competed our very close homo sapiens relatives because we out-bred them for reasons other than sheer intelligence. Eg the Neanderthals needed more calories than we did, so even if they were just as smart that could've been the disadvantage that doomed them.
Well, nothing prevents neanderthals from being in fact smarter than us IOTL. They had somewhat bigger brains (although size is not that important :p)
 
I think the Toba eruption not happening is one of the POD's that can make other hominid species survive....

Why? We'd presumably out-compete any Indonesian hominid just like we did all the others regardless.

You'd need one to wind up on a really isolated island somehow. I think Tasmania is the best bet, bu perhaps too cold.
 
the real problem is getting them to an island where humans don't go later... on OTL, they found pretty much every speck of land in Indonesia fairly early. Instead of having them 'isolated' on some island, maybe have them at one time fairly wide spread over Indonesia/Malaysia, but steadily reduced to smaller and smaller populations (due to competition with humans), until finally there is only one relic population left on one of the big islands... Sumatra, Java, New Guinea, etc...
 
Looking into this, I think the problem with any isolated relic scenario (e.g. Tasmania, Andaman islands, etc.) is that the last glacial maximum ended only ~20k years ago, when modern humans were already widespread the world over.

Short of something *really* improbable like accidentally rafting to Madagascar I don't see how any proto-human population avoids contact with modern humans and hence almost certain annihilation.

Ideas?
 

Meerkat92

Banned
And they may be able to be a type of slave or servant. For simple yet dangerous jobs send in an erectus, for menial jobs that no one wants to do have an erectus do it.

I can already hear it now:

"The damn erectus! They took our jobs!"
 
Top