
How Neanderthal Predation Created Modern Humans - olliesaunders
http://themandus.org/
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quant18
The nicest thing I can say is that it may inspire some neat scifi stories. The
author has some very odd theories about junk DNA ...

Anyway for those who'd like more background on Mr. Vendramini:
[http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/origin-of-a-big-
idea/...](http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/origin-of-a-big-
idea/2006/01/02/1136050390209.html?page=fullpage)

edit: though to be fair, he does have a good point about the
anthropomorphising assumptions behind all those "artistic reconstructions" of
what Neanderthals might have looked like.

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paulbaumgart
I don't know much about the subject, but I read through the first half of his
paper ( <http://themandus.org/abstract.html> ) and it seems reasonably well
argued, fair in assessing the strength of the evidence supporting his
hypotheses, and overall very scholarly. I don't think his ideas can be
dismissed out of hand.

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Semiapies
The page on "Them" goes heavily into the importance of big, slitted eyes and
how our wariness of such indicates the effect of _millenia_ of Neanderthal
predation.

As opposed to indicating the effect of _millions_ of years of predation by a
variety of large felines, many of which hunted at night.

~~~
Semiapies
Ah, apparently we've got some people with investment in this "theory" around.

EDIT: And yes, you don't normally comment about moderation. But someone voting
people down for being skeptical about a bit of half-baked, book-selling,
amateur speculation is worth noting.

------
Semiapies
A major problem with this idea is that Neanderthals were limited to Europe and
the Middle East. That makes them a very unlikely candidate for a predator to
reshape the evolutionary psyche of all humanity.

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DanielBMarkham
Those damn neanderthals look scary as hell. I'm telling you, I felt an
primeval gut reaction looking at those pictures.

Maybe he's on to something.

~~~
jpeterson
They're definitely on to something with the eyes. I don't scare easily, but
any vaguely hominid-shaped creature with big eyes gives me a visceral feeling
of fright. The vertical slit has an affect, too. I think most people have this
same reaction.

Another example of this which I don't think they cite in the article would be
modern alien abduction mythology. Most of the renderings and conceptual
drawings of them portray beings with enormous black eyes (also slanted in the
same fashion as the rendered neanderthals in parent article).

Having said this, there are also many modern animals that, when shown snarling
in the same manner as they portray these neanderthals, would be equally
terrifying, I think.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
_there are also many modern animals that, when shown snarling in the same
manner as they portray these neanderthals, would be equally terrifying, I
think._

In person, yes. But in a picture? That's unusual for me.

I thought the snarl was overdone. Just the big eyes and vaguely human (yet
alien) form was enough

I intuitively like the idea that another intelligent tool-wielding species put
pressure on humans to evolve. I have no idea of the likelihood of the claim,
but it would explain the sudden changes in our species in the last 100K years
or so.

