There is a place within the Middle East known as the Levant. It is here between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago that two groups of humans lived - perhaps in close proximity to each other. One is anatomically like us - modern homo spaiens. The other would have looked different from us in ways that anyone could recognize. They were the Neanderthals.
The "classic" features of the Neanderthals made them more different than any two modern human groups of today - more different than eskimos and Australian aborigines or Kalahari Bushmen. Their mid-facial prognatism and their larger and projecting nose would have differentiated them. Yet there were more differences. They were virtually chinless with rounded eye sockets and had extra-thick browridges. The Neanderthals were clearly something distinct in appearance.
Eric Trinkaus has argued that the Neanderthals of Europe and the Levant consistently show evidence that they placed more stress on their bodies than contemporary modern humans living in the same areas. He suggests their lifestyle was dependent on strength and a constant search for food to maintain that strength. He argues that man, woman and child were incredibly strong in comparison to we modern humans. His research also indicates that bone breakage patterns indicate "close encounters of a nasty animal kind". Trinkhaus believes that Neanderthals used their strong bodies to kill animals at close quarters with hand-held stone tools.
Research by Daniel Lieberman and John Shea suggest more differences between these two groups of people. Their work in the Levant indicates that early modern humans and Neanderthals utilized the environment in different ways. They have discovered through the analysis of animal teeth that modern humans tended to practice a strategy of moving seasonally to exploit their environment. In contrast, Neanderthals tended not to move and exploited their environment from a central place. This research also indicates that Neanderthals hunted more than early modern humans. Lieberman and Shea suggest that this dependency on hunting may have been necessary because Neanderthal populations depleted the other resources around thier home base.
What is intriguing about the Levant is that the technology used by these two groups is not that different. It is what is called Mousterian technology. It is based on tools such as knives, scrapers, denticulates (serrated shredding tools) and other flake implements. In Europe about 40,000 to 30,000 years ago, the story is quite different. Here, the groups lived side by side for about 10,000 years but their technologies were different. Early modern humans in Europe used a more sophisticated and efficient technology. It was more diverse in the forms of tools and was based on production of blades that provided a hundred fold increase in cutting edge for tool production. Modern humans were spearheading a revolution in technology and Neanderthals were being left behind.
James Shreeve asks perhaps the most telling question: "I
can understand how a population with a superior technology might come into
an area and quickly dominate a less sophisticated people already there.
But 10,000 years doesn't sound very quick, even in evolutionary terms. How
can two kinds of human beings exist side by side for that long without sharing
their culture? Without sharing their genes?" (The Neanderthal Peace,
Discover, Sept. 1995, pg. 70-81)