Its a Planet of Apes - the Cro-Magnon man

[zeezack]

What if Homo-Sapiens were out evolutionised by the Cro-Magnon man?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cro-Magnon

Is there a time in history where this could have occured.

 

[Mark-ITSOT]

WRONG!!!!!!

http://www.elephant.se/cro-magnon.php?open=Man and elephants

 

[zeezack]

So there was not a more aggresive species of human around the time of our ancestors? Why would natural selection necessarily favour Homo-Sapians every time?

 

[Tyr]

Not such a bad thing to say.

Cro-mags D) weren't entirely modern humans, they still had a little more evolving to go. The difference is small, dogs and wolves perhaps, but it was there.
But...if they don't do that evolving then we just stay as cavemen.

 

[nakum]

So there was not a more aggresive species of human around the time of our ancestors? Why would natural selection necessarily favour Homo-Sapians every time?

No, cro-magnons essentially ARE modern homo sapiens sapiens

Our ancestor, the Cro Magnon Man is the earliest known modern man, Homo sapiens sapiens, and they lived from about 45,000 to 10,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic period of the Pleistocene epoch

 

[zeezack]

Ok, you know what I mean though right... what type of man would we likely see today if Homo-Sapians were not as successful, for any reason.

 

[MNP]

Ok, you know what I mean though right... what type of man would we likely see today if Homo-Sapians were not as successful, for any reason.

I certainly don't know what you mean. Less successful homo sapiens? Well in what way? Certainly it's possible that a different variation in climate or geography could have made a different adaptation more viable but when and how?

That is, in the current planet earth homo-sapiens ARE the best adapted homo-X creatures for the environment as a whole. You're going end up with a very similar species to us as long as the environment remains the same unless you change how evolution works or summon the XT bats.

 

[eschaton]

Did you even look at the Wikipedia page you linked to? Cro-Magnon man were the ancestors of modern Europeans. Besides being a bit taller, and possibly not being as light skinned/haired as modern-day Europeans, they were otherwise indistinguishable. Because they're the ancestors of modern Europeans only, and not the ancestors of, say, Africans or Asians, they are nested within Homo sapiens.

There were, of course, other branches of human evolution - populations we're pretty sure are not our ancestors in large part. Most famously the Neandertals, although some newer evidence suggests they may of hybridized with "Homo sapiens" to some extent. Also there are the "robust Australopithecines," Hominids who walked on two legs, were larger than our ancestors (but were still shorter than we were - at that time few Hominids broke five feet, and none broke six feet), and seem to have had a vegetarian roughage-filled diet similar to Gorillas. Also, of course there are the dwarfed human "hobbits" from Flores.

As to what the world would be like if one of them ended up on top and started civilization, there's not even really reason to conjecture. We basically have fossils and stone tools, which just tell us about biology and their level of technology (which usually wasn't much different from their contemporaries - our ancestors). We can't come to any conclusions about "behavior" from this - we certainly can't say that any one species was more aggressive than we are. Some Neandertals seem to have engaged in cannibalism, but then again, so do/did some modern humans.

 

[Peabody]

Cro-Magnon

Trust me on this. I am an anthropology graduate. Cro-Magnon's are us. The only evolutionary change since CM is the overbite. We are Cro-Magnon's. If you want to pose an interesting question try this. What if the early Spanish explorers had encountered Homo Erectus in America instead of modern humans. Would we have killed them off or made them our slaves?

 

[Michael B]

If you want to pose an interesting question try this. What if the early Spanish explorers had encountered Homo Erectus in America instead of modern humans. Would we have killed them off or made them our slaves?

Very good question. If they can be trained to do manual labour then you can be sure that the Spanish would have been enslaving them. However given their lower intelligence they may not be trainable although they appear to have the physique.

If they won't/can't work then it is lightly that in the Spanish colonised areas they would be hunted out of existence. especially as they are a travesty of Man and thus a blasphemy before God.

 

[Mark-ITSOT]

There's evidence that H-E was at least intelligent enough to build rafts (see Nature dated 12th of March 1998). So it's likely they could be trained and even educated to a degree.

http://mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu/cowen/historyoflife/erectusatsea.html

http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/images/ancient_island_tools_suggest_hom.htm

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/ancient-seafarers/

 

[Michael B]

There's evidence that H-E was at least intelligent enough to build rafts (see Nature dated 12th of March 1998)/

There is in fact no evidence that they could build rafts. It is a merely hypothesis to explain how they got to Flores. They could have equally as well got there on an accidental raft as monkeys have been seen using.

There was a television programme on the subject here in the UK and whilst they demonstrated that a raft built from local materials could cover the distance, they spoiled their demonstration by using modern paddles.

 

[Ceranthor]

Homo Erectus would probably be wiped out wide-scale, mostly through disease, though settlers would probably shoot them on sight and attack them en masse. You might actually see some kind of hybrids, though. They could form a slave class and might be a substitute for Africans.

Come to think of it, Europeans might try some bizarre breeding program, forcing criminals to couple with Homo Erectus females to make half-breed slaves. They would be disease-resistant and probably pretty docile. In the eyes of the Spanish and later Americans, hybrids could make excellent slaves.

 

[Stephen]

Homo Erectus probably would probably still be using Acheulean culture so they would be a pretty scatered low population. So they could not provide the spanish with many slaves and those that are enslaved would be just as vunerable to infectious disease as OTL Amerindians.