Modern Neanderthals

I was reading an article on the discovery of Homo naledi in south Africa, which commented that it appear s now that at one time up to 4 hominid species lived at the same time, and anthropologically speaking, the fact that modern humans are the only living hominids is rare. this got me thinking "hmmm..what if there were still surviving Neanderthals...that might make for interesting inter-species sex..." but could not get further than that...

There was commercials about that, and a TV show.

Maybe write about an explorer who stumbles across a tribe of non-Sapiens hominids, and then he can slowly uncover their customs. Best of all, you can make it so that they coincidentally express some of your favorite fetishes without offending anyone. There's not really any counter evidence. Maybe they're all swingers, for instance.

I had an idea a while back about a world where, instead of chimpanzee-related humans coming to dominance, a hominid based on another great ape had. I tried to think about what sort of "human" you'd get had we split off from the orangutan or gorilla line, or if we had split off from bonobos after the chimp/bonobo split a few million years ago, instead, based on their current behavior and looking at how chimps and humans are similar. It certainly wasn't scientific, but it was fun.

You could easily make it erotic, though. Bonobos are famous for their promiscuity, after all, and gorillas are well known for their harems. And if redheads are your thing, you can go with orangs!

Well modern man has been shown to have some Neanderthal DNA.

As for the idea, there's two sci-fi novels that give me inspiration on this one.

In "Glory Lane" (Alan Dean Foster novel where three teens from California find a crached alien and end up in increasingly larger events till they play a role in literally shaping the universe) a plot point is that the Neanderthals were actually abducted by aliens and moved to another planet so they wouldn't be wiped out. Left alone, they actually developed technology far faster than their Earth-bound contemporaries. They even refer to people from Earth as "cousins." Interestingly, they look exactly like they did back in prehistoric times and as a result find modern man repulsive to look at.

Maybe Neanderthals decide to take a trip back to Earth to see how the population is doing. One of them goes too far and actually averts or intervenes in an event, revealing their existence. It could either be a one-on-one affair where a Neanderthal abducts a man or woman and ends up in a sexual relationship. Or one where after their presence is revealed, the Neanderthals are shocked to see a fetish develop around them. Curious, they allow some intermingling and are impressed by Earth's sexual libido.

Or, taking a page from "Second Foundation" the Neanderthals have been hiding their presence this whole time, subtly moving events. However, they tire of how long things are taking, so they decide to seduce key members of society so their offspring will be able to move events far faster by acting out in the open.

or 'Battlestar Galactica' - towards the end:
when they find 'another prehistoric earth' and abandon their spaceships& settle there.

Crichton's EATERS OF THE DEAD is a superb story (allegedly true) of Sapiens-Neandertal interaction a millennium ago, complete with sex IIRC. Believably setting such encounters NOW would be tricky -- ain't many un-surveilled places left -- but in LIT fantasyland nobody cares. Set it before the space age and it's workably plausible. A Guianan / Venezuelan tepuy or similar island-in-the-sky; a geothermal-warm pocket of Antarctica; HP Lovecraft's Plateau of Leng or Conan Doyle's Amazonian Lost World; a forbidden cave system around Burundi, etc.

For fun, stealthy, canny Neanders could be hiding in Paris' sewers, or Rome's catacombs, or the New York subways, or even passing for human within some metropolis. Such would hardly attract attention in San Francisco.

A Neander community would be easier to write than a Yeti / Sasquatch. Run with it!

Eaters of the Deat may be the only book he wrote I never read.

However if the problem is finding a plausibly unsurveiled location then the easiest thing to do is write a period piece. Simply write a period piece. Nobody really calls out King Kong or even Giligan on the idea that there could be islands out there that nobody had ever seen.

Sean Renaud said:

Eaters of the Deat may be the only book he wrote I never read.

However if the problem is finding a plausibly unsurveiled location then the easiest thing to do is write a period piece. Simply write a period piece. Nobody really calls out King Kong or even Giligan on the idea that there could be islands out there that nobody had ever seen.

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Gilligan's Island didn't have a sustainable breeding population, last time I checked. Did that show change its premise dramatically? I mean, they'd probably get more viewers that way...

MatthewVett said:

Gilligan's Island didn't have a sustainable breeding population, last time I checked. Did that show change its premise dramatically? I mean, they'd probably get more viewers that way...

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My point wasn't about the size of the population, only about the fact that it wasn't on any of the charts. Crichton's Congo suggested that Solomon's mines were sufficiently off the beaten path to have a unique population of gorillas and could easily have had a breeding population of anything else if it wanted. Same with Skull Island of King Kong and I'm sure if I spent a few minutes perusing through literature that more could be found. And that's assuming you want semi-modern people.

So my question is, do these Neanderthals speak modern English or do they have their own language?

Like, in their language the name for their people could be 'Hot dog' so when someone says, 'Hey, you're a neanderthal' the Neanderthal says, 'No I'm not, I'm a hot dog.' ... Important stuff.



Edit:

To add something serious ... an explorer is off on his own or with friends, they run into these neanderthals, taken captive, (they aren't treated nicely) a girl or guy cave man falls for one of the explorers or is taken by their differences and helps them escape and you get a running action/love story ... does the explorer take their savior with them knowing the circus they'll face by the media or do they never tell a soul and let these people live in peace?

It's fiction. Everybody speaks English. (OR Japanese. . .or whatever the audience speaks.) Green space babes? English. Orcs? English. Demons? English. Elves? Elfish. (But that's because they are pretentious douche bags. Legolas and Arrowyn can speak perfect English they just don't sometimes. Because DOUCHE. I bet you the first time they met Strider/Aragorn they were all "Stupid human thinks he's hot shit don't he!?" And he was like "And I bet the douchebags thought I didn't understand elfish!"

On the subject communication problems only exist if you think they will further the story. IF that's just one more headache they magically speak English because this is where Captain Cook's ship crashed fifty years ago. Or they have a tv and it gets Seasame Street.

On the final note. . .it really depends on a lot of things. The era, how big a deal they make personally so on and so forth. Have you SEEN pictures from various side shows in the past? So and so was born with a rare disease you never heard of would suffice for MOST people MOST of the time.

Strictly narratively that just depends on if you want the story to end with "I love you but we live in different worlds" or "lets explore my world." With ultimately is about what do you want because the first ending is the actual ending of the story. The second is a sequel begging for a place to happen.

That hot dog line was funny (to me) only reason I said it ...

as for the 'depends on a lot of things' ... don't overthink a simple plot. If you throw out 100 questions on something people might find sweet or be able to identify with on a very small scale, then you'll fuck up the story. Doesn't matter (for the most part) what happens in the real world, just what happens in yours.

The hotdog line was hilarious.

I agree it only matters what happens in your world so long as it's consistent.

Consistency is key ... a 9 volume series was partially ruined for me because the author would make a rule and then just ignore it 10 pages later. Constantly.

Hypoxia said:

Believably setting such encounters NOW would be tricky -- ain't many un-surveilled places left -- but in LIT fantasyland nobody cares. Set it before the space age and it's workably plausible. ... [or] a forbidden cave system around Burundi, etc.

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Sean Renaud said:

However if the problem is finding a plausibly unsurveiled location then the easiest thing to do is write a period piece.

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That's what I said -- set it before the space age.

Sean Renaud said:

Crichton's Congo suggested that Solomon's mines were sufficiently off the beaten path to have a unique population of gorillas and could easily have had a breeding population of anything else if it wanted.

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That's what I said -- around Burundi i.e. the Virunga Mountains, the setting of CONGO. OK, I should have said Rwanda. I was tired.

Everyday_Man said:

So my question is, do these Neanderthals speak modern English or do they have their own language?

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If they live stealthily within a modern civilization or even in San Francisco they speak a local language as well as their own. If they're cultural isolates in the Virunga Mountains or the Leng Plateau or wherever, they speak only their own tongue. Different Neandertal isolates will have different languages, too -- Virungans can't talk with Lengans nor with Gringos and other alleged Sapiens.

(I'm using south Mexican terminology -- in Chiapas, southernmost Mexico with a Mayan majority, all outsiders are Gringos, be they USAnians black or white, Russians, Japanese, Baja Californians, whatever. Similarly, all non-Catholics are Evangelistas, be they Lutheran, Adventist, Scientologist, Muslim, etc.)

One old trick is that the Sapiens outsider must learn the local Neander isolate tongue, preferably in bed. An older trick is that the Sapien's bedmate learns the Gringo language enough for pidgin-type talk. An even older trick is that they develop a gestural language sufficient for basic commo. But if the hungry Neanders merely devour outsiders, it matters not.

No, no you were right Hypoxi!

An idea just arrived re: temporal setting. Place it at the dawn of the total surveillance era, say around 1967. Our 1st-world Western protagonist Hal is an image analyst (civilian contractor) who sees an anomaly in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan (which was still a Western client state). It's non-military so he doesn't report it but takes a leave of absence and flies to Baghdad to catch the bus to New Delhi. He gets off in Kabul (after consuming hashish+opium cookies sold by station-platform vendors) and heads north into the wilds. He indeed finds the anomaly -- a Neandertal camp. He's captured, sexually used, etc. Frivolity ensues. Will other analysts notice the same anomaly and send in rangers to probe it? Will Hal be rescued? Will he WANT to be?

This isn't news, they've been hiding out here in the Loving wives section for years

lovecraft68 said:

This isn't news, they've been hiding out here in the Loving wives section for years

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And one seems to think he flies planes.

lovecraft68 said:

This isn't news, they've been hiding out here in the Loving wives section for years

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*snortle*

almost spewed my coffee

Probably the last Neanderthals lived in caves on Gibraltar:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthals_of_Gibraltar

Although there is no evidence that modern humans interacted with them, the dates make it possible.

Fucktard trolls on LW and GB are not gentle peaceful Neandertals but rather crude Cro-Magnons of the Pikes subspecies, with traditions as horse and chicken thieves, school dropouts, and banjo players. Equating them to Neanders insults true Neandertals, the ancestors of Quakers. But even Quakers surrounded by cruel Pikes must need adopt defensive attitudes. Hence the Neander reluctance to allow our modern explorer to enter their circle except as a submissive.

Hey! those of us on the GB are filled with nothing but love and tolerance! We are a kind and gentle people who welcome all outsiders with lollipops hugs and occasionally with pink ponies. GOT IT?!

Sounds like an Alternate Universe story.