I would
love to know what early Sapiens thought about the Neanderthals. Did they see them as that other tribe that is very strong, but acts a bit foolishly sometimes? As we have been the only remaining member of the Homo species for thousands of years now, living side by side with creatures that are only
quite like us is an experience that has been lost in the collective human memory. I think it is pretty likely that Sapiens back then just thought of a Neanderthal tribe in a similar way they thought about another Sapiens tribe. I read somewhere that the body proportions of Neanderthals are within the range of body proportions of modern humans, and research suggests that there was interbreeding between Sapiens and Neanderthals.
(As a male homo sapiens, I have to say that if Neanderthal women looked like this [0], they certainly looked a bit strange, but they were not repelling or appeared un-human.)
On a side note regarding early sapiens: I never understood why most people assume that humans today are, on average, more intelligent than our ancestors 40,000 years ago. If anything, thousands of years of agriculture and living in large settlements removed the evolutionary pressure to be a quick and inventive observer of your environment. It is much more easy to somehow get by in an established farming community with thousands of members if you are a bit dense than it is if you are part of a small tribe of hunters.
[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Reconstr...
(As a male homo sapiens, I have to say that if Neanderthal women looked like this [0], they certainly looked a bit strange, but they were not repelling or appeared un-human.)
On a side note regarding early sapiens: I never understood why most people assume that humans today are, on average, more intelligent than our ancestors 40,000 years ago. If anything, thousands of years of agriculture and living in large settlements removed the evolutionary pressure to be a quick and inventive observer of your environment. It is much more easy to somehow get by in an established farming community with thousands of members if you are a bit dense than it is if you are part of a small tribe of hunters.
[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Reconstr...