From Dan Conine, Robins, Iowa, US
Your story on how the Neanderthals really died amid the rise of Homo sapiens, based on regional occupation, sounds like a perpetual hunt/war between the two groups. It would have started with Neanderthals hunting invasive “weak” humans until our species got smarter and tried to eliminate them (12 October, p 36).
Those Neanderthals that split off to avoid us survived with some trading of territory over millennia. Maybe some enlightened H. sapiens even tried to “save the Neanderthals” in parks (look for them in human burial areas). As Neanderthals were too intelligent to be domesticated, it was easier to enslave our fellow humans. But Neanderthals died off because they weren’t ultimately useful in the human artificial environment or, in the end, because they tasted good and were easy to find.
