L.A. Caveman

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

Ugh... I see what you mean.

 

*Sigh*

I wish the DGA would pul their heads out of their butts.

A Rodriguez Barsoom movie is one I would watch. I have doubts about the other directors.

[Susano]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

*Sigh*

I wish the DGA would pul their heads out of their butts.

A Rodriguez Barsoom movie is one I would watch. I have doubts about the other directors.

 

Especially since he had Frazetta doing the concept art. Imagine, a film filled with nearly naked women who look like they'd been painted by Frazetta or drawn by Cho!

 

[keithcurtis]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

You're describing Fire and Ice.

 

Keith "Been there, done that" Curtis

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

You're describing Fire and Ice.

 

Keith "Been there, done that" Curtis

 

Except with a plot.

I like watching Fire and Ice, mind you,but it was a bit plot thin.

 

The "plotting the action scenes by fliming stuntmen with boffers" thing made for some great animated fight sequences tho.

It's fighter porn

[OddHat]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

There's a case to be made that, for their time, the Tarzan books weren't all that racist. "For its time" being the key. After all, Tarzan does meet and both war with and befriend a fair number of black Africans, even if his romantic life is curiously restricted to whites (Jane and La, though there may have been others; long time since I read the books). They were inferior to Tarzan, but then so were the whites he met. As pointed out in Houdini, Tarzan and the Perfect Man, Tarzan was a fusion of the best of two worlds, and a superior animal in both. There was the idea that he was superior in part because of his European blood, but then the idea of superiority through blood line and tribal affiliation is one that every culture on Earth has held to pretty much throughout history, nonsensiacal or no. Slap the label "racism" on it and people get nervous.

 

I suppose I should add that none of the above is meant to be a defense of racism; as someone who has been refused access to restaurants, housing, video rental clubs, taxi cabs, etc. based on my race, as well as phisically threatened and assaulted, I'm in a good position to say first hand that racism suxors. I simply don't see it as a unique artifact of any one place, time or culture, and I don't like seeing otherwise good story telling dismissed just because our current cultural belief set has shifted around a bit.

[OddHat]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

As to the original question, Neanderthals probably couldn't pass as modern humans. Rapid escape to the wilds would be the only option, or life in a zoo.

 

Crom-Magnons might pass as modern humans, in a scary street person sort of way, but unless some sci-fi rapid language training is involved you still end up with rapid escape as the only option.

 

Teach a Cro-Mag English and basic customs and he could probably settle into modern American culture fast enough. Furniture movers are always in demand.

[Susano]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

You're describing Fire and Ice.

 

Keith "Been there, done that" Curtis

 

Yes... but Fire and Ice was... uhm... bad? Yes, bad.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

"Bad" didn't stop you from recommending Six String Samurai...

[Susano]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

"Bad" didn't stop you from recommending Six String Samurai...

 

Six-String Samurai was awesome!

[Lucius]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

As to the original question, Neanderthals probably couldn't pass as modern humans. Rapid escape to the wilds would be the only option, or life in a zoo.

 

Crom-Magnons might pass as modern humans, in a scary street person sort of way, but unless some sci-fi rapid language training is involved you still end up with rapid escape as the only option.

 

Teach a Cro-Mag English and basic customs and he could probably settle into modern American culture fast enough. Furniture movers are always in demand.

 

 

As far as can be told from the physical remains, a Cro Magnon IS a modern Human.

 

It would probably be basically a case of a person of stone-age culture trying to adapt to the modern world - Ishi being a close parrellel.

 

Now, a Neanderthal is another matter. They were physically different, and we can only speculate on what ways their brains might differ as well.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary feels sorry for those of us with only one brain apiece.

[keithcurtis]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

Just for the record, I was not recommending Fire and Ice. Merely noting that it fit the criteria.

 

Keith "Stupid, stupid movie. Who was the guy with the axe???" Curtis

[Markdoc]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

Keith "Stupid' date=' stupid movie. Who was the guy with the axe???" Curtis[/quote']

 

 

Batman. Batman of alternate earth 203630.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

As far as can be told from the physical remains' date=' a Cro Magnon IS a modern Human.

 

It would probably be basically a case of a person of stone-age culture trying to adapt to the modern world - Ishi being a close parrellel.

 

Now, a Neanderthal is another matter. They were physically different, and we can only speculate on what ways their brains might differ as well.

 

Given that they lived along-side - and apparently competed with - anatomically modern humans for about 50-75,000 years, probably not very different.

 

It's an ongoing (and probably unsolvable) argument as to whether neanderthals were replaced by being outcompeted by better adapted modern humans, or simply eradicated by a culturally more evolved subgroup of anatomically modern humans (since the same group apparently also replaced *other* anatomically modern humans elewhere).

 

As to physical appearance, humans are diverse enough, a properly dressed neanderthal could almost certainly pass as human without eliciting more than "Wow! That's one ugly guy!" in response.

 

cheers, Mark

[Lucius]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

Given that they lived along-side - and apparently competed with - anatomically modern humans for about 50-75' date='000 years, probably not very different.[/quote']

 

I daresay you're probably right.

 

Then again, I could even be wrong in contending that an "anatomically modern" person would have no more difficulties than, say, the famous Ishi example (as if those weren't problem enough....) - in cases where the archeological evidence shows a lack of art, for example, it could be that there were genuine physical differences in brain structure that just don't show up as differences of skull structure.

 

Speaking of skulls, I understand a Neanderthal brain case is actually LARGER than a modern Human's.....it's an amusing speculation to imagine them actually smarter than us on the average, and/or with very different cognitive abilities.

 

 

As to physical appearance, humans are diverse enough, a properly dressed neanderthal could almost certainly pass as human without eliciting more than "Wow! That's one ugly guy!" in response.

 

cheers, Mark

 

True enough. But probably not to his face, given the simultaneous "Wow! That's one strong/tough looking guy!" response.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And a cave palindromedary

[Susano]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

Then again' date=' I could even be wrong in contending that an "anatomically modern" person would have no more difficulties than, say, the famous Ishi example (as if those weren't problem enough....)[/quote']

 

What is the "Ishi example"?

[Markdoc]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

What is the "Ishi example"?

 

Ishi (the name just means "man" and isn't his real name) was the last of the Yahi, or "Mill Creek Indians" who used to live around Mt Lassen in Northern California. During the gold rush era and the cattlemen who followed, the Yahi were basically hunted into extinction.

 

Or so it was thought - but a small group retreated into the mountains and survived without any contact with the rest of California until around 1910, when the last few survivors were found. Three of the four apparently died after the men who found them stole all their food and belongings, leaving Ishi, who eventually was taken to the university of California, where one of the professors learned his language and tried to teach him how to survive in the 20th century. In return, he passed on his knowledge of his tribes lore and language.

 

We'll never know how he would have fared outside the university, though - he died of TB a few years later.

 

Ishi's story has been made into a book, at least two movies and a Tv documentary.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

Speaking of skulls, I understand a Neanderthal brain case is actually LARGER than a modern Human's.....it's an amusing speculation to imagine them actually smarter than us on the average, and/or with very different cognitive abilities.

 

Yep - (or to be more precise, they display a bigger range - so the larger brain cavities from Neanderthals are larger than all but extreme human examples) though there's no real connection between brain size and intelligence, which seems to have more to do with how the brain is wired (still a pretty mysterious subject).

 

It *is* possible of course, that neanderthals were dimmer than the group that replaced them - it's just that it's impossible for us to know. In evolutionary terms, the time they co-existed with modern humans is short enough that maybe the difference was just not immediately obvious and they were pushed out when populations became high enough that they came into direct competition...

 

Yeah, I know that now I am arguing the other side: it's just that there's so little data that we can basically believe whatever suits our prejudice.

 

Cheers, Mark

 

PS. My prejudice is that the question is currently unanswerable and therefore essentially unaskable.

[Vestnik]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

Given that they lived along-side - and apparently competed with - anatomically modern humans for about 50-75,000 years, probably not very different.

 

It's an ongoing (and probably unsolvable) argument as to whether neanderthals were replaced by being outcompeted by better adapted modern humans, or simply eradicated by a culturally more evolved subgroup of anatomically modern humans (since the same group apparently also replaced *other* anatomically modern humans elewhere).

 

As to physical appearance, humans are diverse enough, a properly dressed neanderthal could almost certainly pass as human without eliciting more than "Wow! That's one ugly guy!" in response.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Let's see, short, broad and physically powerful... Danny DeVito on steroids.

 

I think it's incredibly sad that the Neanderthals died out. So much the better though, probably. Considering what a hard time human beings have with the concept of race, can you imagine what things would be like if there were two sentient hominid species walking around?

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

Let's see, short, broad and physically powerful... Danny DeVito on steroids.

 

I think it's incredibly sad that the Neanderthals died out. So much the better though, probably. Considering what a hard time human beings have with the concept of race, can you imagine what things would be like if there were two sentient hominid species walking around?

 

There is an increasing body of research that points to the possibilty of hybridization. Previous hypotheses (is that the right plural?) discounting the possibilty have begun to come into doubt. There some interesting reading out there on the subject.

[Badger]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

I don't think Tarzan failed to work as musical comedy because of the music. I happen to like that soundtrack quite a bit. It fails as romance I feel, because there is none. Boy meets girl, slow attraction builds, at some point they're in love, wait--what part did we miss? There's no comedic build to it at all, no tension. The characters never really have any difficulty attracting to each other beyond initial shock. Ho-Hum.

Where Tarzan does succeed is in the action (at least as far as is possible in a children's movie). Never before or since has the description of how Tarzan moves been captured so well. Yes, there was a lot of skateboard influence, but the fluidity and sense of flying through the tree tops was there.

 

As for Hunchback being in any way a tragedy, I have to disagree. Yes, Frollo dies by his own faults, but so does nearly every Disney villain. I swear, if I was a Disney villain, I would never chase anyone, particularly upon any sort of height. Frollo might be considered a tragic figure if he had any redeeming virtues. He isn't flawed, he's just bad.

Now the original Hunchback is a tragedy, and much more depressing in the ending. I might also add that I spent half the book wanting to slap Esmeralda and stab Phoebus.

 

Keith "Spell checker wanted me to type Tartan. Now a Scottish ape-man would be cool." Curtis

 

 

When I first saw a book titled "Hunchback of Notre Dame", I was six. And I was convinced it must be about a Notre Dame football player who suffered a career-ending back injury.

 

Well. I was only 6.

[Badger]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

Do we have any firm data on the cognitive abilities of Neandrathal and Cro-Magnon man? Hard to tell without it.

 

Personally, you could probably make a good living as a university anthropology department's live in guest. Just hang out on campus and help the researchers. Considering fraternity culture, a "cave-man" might be regarded as genteel and sophisticated - a real hit with the ladies.

 

And a whole lot of fun at frat parties.

[Badger]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

As to the original question, Neanderthals probably couldn't pass as modern humans.

 

 

But, my uncle did.

[patrick]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

My present obsession (er... setting I'm writing) involves humans from Earth (along with uplifted chimps) going out into interstellar space and encountering other humans and neanderthals, along with other flora a fauna from Earth.

 

The background is that 50,000 to 30,000 years ago "the greys" seeded our part of the galaxy with species taken from, and then guided them along. To them the entire exercise was something like having a rose garden.

 

Given a significant time grow with out competition, neanderthals are just as advanced as us. Although the communication of ideas between species is sometimes awkward due to the fact that neanderthals don't have a grasp of aesthetics (they value function over form), and other abstract ideas go right over them.

 

They're also stronger, tougher, a little slower in pace, and do better in colder climes/worse in hotter ones.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

The GURPS 3rd edition supplement Timeline suggested that Neanderthals might have been telepathic due to the different way their brains were wired (of course, since brain tissue is one of the first things to decompose after death there's no real way to know). In the original GURPS Time Travel setting, the temporal police organization known as Timepiece was known to recruit them for that very quality.

 

Of course, if the Neanderthals did communicate largely by telepathy that would have made dealing with the psionically "deaf, dumb and blind" Cro-Magnons (aka us) virtually impossible.

[patrick]

Re: L.A. Caveman

 

I thought about a telepathic angle for Neanderthals, but in the system that I'm originally writing my setting for (Savage Worlds, though I plan to write a Hero and a D20 version), the Neanderthals were plenty powerful enough, making them telepathic would have made them unbalanced with humans and chimps.

 

I got the idea of Neanderthals "thinking" different from the Jean Auel books.

 

I remember a few weeks ago seeing a poorly done psudo-documenty on one of the learning channels. The information was ok, the presentation was just hookey. One of the thing it talked about was that because Neanderthals had a hyoid bone they were capable of speech, but they had a shorter voice box and along with the shape of their nasal passages their voices would have had a high pitch nasal quality to them.

 

Neanderthals sounded like Mike Tyson and Fran Drescher.