The thread should really be titled "Neanderthals: A life lesson for us to learn", since that's where this post is headed.   But now that I have your attention... A couple months ago, I ended up reading a few articles about the two types of Chimpanzee species that are currently alive. What really got my attention is that the two groups, despite being in the same genus, behave completely different, with a different societal structure and the sort. The only obvious similarities in their society is that, like all primates, they're highly social and in particular they tend to live in groups ranging from 15-100.   The Bonobo is the kind known as "the gracile chimpanzee". It's name comes from living in a near-egalitarian societal structure, meaning every chimp is treated nearly the same with a minimal amount of hierarchies. They tend to be incredibly peaceful and instead of attacking one another, they take their frustration out with immense amounts of intimacy. They are also seen as having a Matriarchal society where the females control the males via sexuality. They are also predominately fruit-eaters. Bonobos also tend to treat outsiders generally pretty warmly, and being accepted into another group isn't much of a problem. Brain studies show that their brains are structured in a way where they have a stronger sense of feeling empathy, being able to control aggression pretty smoothly, and sensing distress in others. I like to think of them as Hippies.   The Common Chimpanzee, in stark contrast, live in a highly hierarchial society, being male-dominated, and usually have an Alpha-Male as pack leader. The leader is usually very aggressive of his position, and members of an alliance may turn on another if it benefits the individual. Their society is very complicated and allegiances between members or smaller groups are made and broken frequently. Internal wars for power happen quite often and weaker members tend to switch sides often. They are also incredibly territorial and males of one pack have been known to kill members of another. Chimps however, wage wars over land instead of claiming mates. Besides being big on fruit, they also use elaborate strategies for hunting in packs.     So, looking at how incredibly different the two species can be. It had me wondering, how different were the other 20 or so members of the genuses Australopithecus and Homo? Think about it, each species could've had their own unique society, culture, and way of thinking on top of their lifestyle. In particular I wanted to learn more about the Neanderthal (or Homo Neanderthalensis).   Neanderthals were members of the genus Homo (so they can be called humans), that split off our branch something like 700,000 years ago. They lived only in Europe, were about our same height, were more robust and less scrawny-looking like us. No real big differences in appearance, except having a larger eyebrow ridge and somewhat flatter nose. If you were to have one alive today and dressed him/her up in regular clothes and trimmed the hair, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference unless you got up close to one and examined facial features, it might not be incredibly obvious. The ancestors of modern Europeans and Neanderthals actually lived in the same geographical area, and it was totally possible for them to mate.   But here's the real kicker: on average they had slightly larger brains than us! Does that mean they were smarter than us? That's still up in grabs...   So, what was their society like? It's not easy to deduce behavior for something that's no longer around, but we have a lot of evidence to firmly lead us in a certain direction. A little research led me to this:   Neanderthals lived in groups of 5-10 individuals, while we lived in groups of 30-40. Their weapons tended to be less elaborate then our own. Many fractures have been found on their bones along with the remains of their prey. From a forensic point of view we have realized that Neanderthals (having a more robust body than ours), actually fought their prey much more directly, even taking them down using their own bodies. They used their physical strength to their advantage. The Thals were also largely carnivorous, buried their dead, had their own language, and made their homes using animal bones (like the Mammoths).   One strange detail is that they had settlements which lasted for a very long time, with their own remains always found not far away. This has lead experts to conclude they rarely ventured far from home and also hardly ever interacted with outsiders, including other members of their own species. They were xenophobic traditionalists who were simply not as curious about the world as their Homo Sapien cousins. The Thals would be analogous to today's extreme conservatives and this is heavily evidenced by the fact that their tools changed very little over the course of their existence, while our own tools become gradually better and better and better... and here we are now.   Over time, Neanderthals were out-competed by the more versatile and curious Homo Sapiens. They were unwilling to change, come up with better tools, unable to be unified, and also unwilling to explore the world. We, on the other hand, spread across the world due to our curiosity and developed ever-better technologies. Ultimately they were unable to keep up or compete for resources and were eventually driven to extinction because of it.   There's a lesson in life from this... Being overly traditional and xenophobic is a very bad thing. It prevents progression in society and the development of better tools. Curiosity and an urge to explore the world is what brought us here today. A lack thereof lead to the demise of the Neanderthals. Luckily though, the the Thals didn't totally vanish, they still live... They live, in us! People with non-African decent have between 1-4% of their DNA being that of a Neanderthal's, meaning that our ancestors intermingled with them. Presumably, the more "curious" Thals were the ones to venture out and maybe even live amongst our ancestors. Maybe a few of these Thals and Sapiens lived together in their own clan starting their own families and creating hybrid humans en masse, which allowed for their lineage to not be completely lost.   Today, there's a growing trend in society of being unconcerned about the world at large leaving people highly narrow-minded and ignorant, despite how advanced our technology is. It would seriously behoove us to learn from this lesson if we don't want to end up like our late cousins, the Neanderthals.     *Images below are reconstructions of the Thals: