Has anyone read Jean Auel's books starting with Clan of the Cave Bear? I had never read them when they were popular, being a good dub and all.
Just started the 1st and am fascinated with the premise. The "Clan" people hominids are Neandrathals and the "Others" are Cro-Magnons. In a book by Jared Diamond, he discusses the difference. We are descended from Cro-Magnons and the Neandrathals went extinct. But they co-existed for a time!
Jared Diamond states that if you dressed one of each in modern clothes, you'd know instantly the Neandrathal (ND) (the typical "caveman"), but you could not distinguish the Cro-Magnon (CM) from anyone else.
He posits that probably the CM either killed off ND or just drove them off gradually (peacefully tho) from the better lands and they died off.
But the really interesting thing to me is that they co-existed, but probably didn't intermarry because of the marked differences. There were also other hominids that didn't survive.
Another possibility (maybe!) is that that's where ancient stories originated about goblins and trolls, that were human-like but long arms and very muscular.
Pat
