I was just watching the start of this
schlockfest (best thing in it is Raquel Welch) and I was thinking about how lacking modern humans are in the most basic reasoning skills.
The film opens showing a group of people constantly at each other's throats, brother against brother, barely able to even organize the simple killing of a boar. They do not bother to pick up a fallen man and leave him to die of a broken leg. Back at the cave they fight like dogs over pieces of meat without bothering to hoard any or put any of the catch away, simply eating it on the spot. The women are continuously taken by force and raped whenever any of the men desires them in between stone age catfights. The cave people are depicted as being incapable of speech and only able to use angry gestures. It was almost like watching the
BET Awards on cable. As if there had ever been any Caucasians in the history of the planet who could organize no more social strategy than this under pressure of tough living conditions.
It was hilarious stuff because Homo Sapiens really thinks this is what Neanderthals were like. It was almost like watching the
"TYME MASHEEN" at the end of
IDIOCRACY to see what crude notions that Sapiens had formed of the past.
It doesn't occur to people that in this tough climate with tribal sizes so small, people with these general behavioral strategies, character makeup and personalities would likely be dead in a matter of days at best. At best. In fact, anybody with the general character of Homo Sapiens would be unlikely to survive a single winter in a climate much colder than the one he has taken for granted during the Holocene. They just don't have the right stuff for anything else.
This is about the phenomenon of projection. The truth is, the only way a**holes this pathetic could survive anywhere under any conditions is right now under the peculiar and unnatural conditions created by "civilization" in the Holocene. At no other time could such barbarism endure for long in the cold.
The evidence shows that Neanderthals and all K-types (conservative biological strategy) are the diametric opposite of these qualities in every possible way. They exhibit great care not only for their injured and wounded but even more respect when burying their dead. They demonstrate a deference to females in all matters of mate selection, never forcing themselves onto women for any reason at the risk of death or expulsion. They tend to decentralized leadership in which cooperation has a very high survival benefit for everyone who learns to avoid conflict and work together without dispute. Far from being promiscuous, the climate encourages lifelong monogamy, emphasis on child rearing and parental investment over and beyond anything Homo Sapiens has ever seen in his society of loose, ever changing sexual unions based on status and reputation. The natural selection for long term provisioning and anticipation of outcomes is very strong in these environments, with constant reinforcement. Far from being monomaniacal idiots driven by impulse gratification, there is evolutionary pressure at all times for stoicism, indifference to immediate needs and the ability to put away selfish motives for altruistic group benefits.
In short, I thought this film was about Homo Sapiens, not Neanderthals. Also, these guys were puny specimens in this movie. I've got more muscle mass on the inside of my big toe than these guys had on their backs and quadriceps. They were sunken chested girly men saps playing at Neanderthals and not very convincingly I might add. Neanderthals could have killed ten of these guys in ten seconds while playing an intense ping pong game with his free hand against the entire Chinese International team.
That Raquel Welch was one beautiful woman. In a Neanderthal tribe she would have picked a mate for many traits other than the ability to grunt and eat a drum leg, not least of which she would have looked for sincerity. Sincerity would reveal all the other traits above if they existed in the man. This is how the Neanderthal got the way he is, by women truly choosing men for their really good qualities for a million years. This is why brains got bigger and character got better in these men generation after generation. Once she had chosen her mate, the other men would have gotten over their disappointment quickly and they would have quickly shifted to treating her like a sister, championing her without assurance of sexual gratification because it would demonstrate to other women around her their good integrity as males, that they were ready to defend children and women as a general rule at all times against any kind of threat. By showing good sportsmanship at all times considering everything, Raquel's good looking sisters and relatives would begin to look fondly on that male as a good catch for themselves.
Neanderthals are easy to understand. They were the good ones. They were that way for a reason. They were the opposite of Homo Sapiens in every way you can imagine. The only thing the two species had in common was two legs, two arms and ten fingers and toes. Outside of this, nothing remotely alike.