[Basic] Realistic Low Tech Challengers

[Tuk the Weekah]

Originally Posted by A Ladder

I read somewhere that Neanderthals were wiped out by homo sapiens because they didn't have as good as tool making mental facilities as our ancestors. So I'll consider removing it.

Very old thinking.

Current tidbits about Neanderthal: their blood clotted more quickly than homo sapiens sapiens--an advantage when fighting close-range with prey, a disadvantage when it comes to heart disease; they were lactose-intolerant; it's possible that male Neanderthal/human hybrids were infertile, while female hybrids were not; it's possible that they had what we would consider hyperactive immune systems, and were actually wiped out by allergies when non-native plants moved north through Europe during climate change following the Ice Age. Then there is the increased risk for Crohn's disease, and the Type-2 diabetes....

Basically, the current thinking all boils down to Neanderthal had too small & too localized a breeding population, and were wiped out by accumulated in-breeding. We just took advantage of their gap in the eco-system.

Or, possibly, it was the wolf that did it. We had wolves (dogs); they did not. Makes running down prey animals so much easier.