Neanderthals were compassionate etc.

[TylerDurden]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5497895/Neanderthals-survived-300-000-years-compassion.html

[PaganGoy]

They show an ape looking African monkey posing as a blonde blue eyed light white skin neanderthal...

[TylerDurden]

It is interesting to see how images of Neanderthals evolved since the 1970s to the present era. The ones from the 1970s are incredibly different from the more current ones.

[PaganGoy]

I would probably be right to assume (((they))) have made them look darker over time.

[Xisca]

Of course they were!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my! They were mammals and even dogs are compassionate! And mammals tend to smile and be communicative, not like the imaginary fantasy they represent.....

[TylerDurden]

I would probably be right to assume (((they))) have made them look darker over time.

Just looked again at this old thread - actually, in the 1970s, I found that the Neanderthals were always portrayed as being dark-brown-skinned at the time, with very low backward-leaning brows(despite having had much higher brain-volumes). I suspect that this was because of the out of africa theory which had preached at the time that white skin only appeared some time after the last hominid migration out of africa. In actual fact, as we have since discovered, white(ie pale skin) was already present in the ancestor of both chimpanzees and hominids/apemen, and also that the Neanderthals were white-skinned. The OoA theory has been mostly debunked by now as a result.

When I was a child in the 1970s, it always puzzled me as to the human exceptionalism displayed towards the Neanderthals. Nowadays, it doesn't surprise me at all. If Neanderthals(or even Homo Erectus etc.) are shown to be far more advanced/intelligent than previously supposed, then the OoA theory is mostly debunked.