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"It’s the tyranny of evolution.[…]The triumph of the Homo Sapiens over the Neanderthal."

Wade, 2261


Neanderthal was a race that originated on Earth a few hundred thousand years before Humans.

No one knows when they evolved precisely but its estimated about 500,000 BC. One major technological accomplishment was the discovery of fire. Like their surviving cousins, they also buried their dead. They did not fashion many tools, however, but they had invented the grinder which was a ball like shaped rock used for warfare and hunting wildlife.

Culturally, not much else is attributed to this species. For the most part, the Neanderthals were remembered by humans as brutes that got by though life with their strength rather than their brains. Nevertheless, the Neanderthal possessed higher brain mass than their human cousins.

They were closely related to their surviving cousins Cro-Magnon (Archaic humans) and modern Humans from about 100,000 BC. Although the reasons for their extinction are uncertain, it is possible the causes were climate change along with competition with Humans. They had lasted for nearly half a million years on Earth. The Neanderthal had survived multiple Ice Ages, leading many researchers to believe that they had invented some kind of clothing made from animal skins. None of the Neanderthal clothing ever survived in the fossil record.

Notes[]

  • The photograph at right depicts a Neanderthal wearing his usual theorized clothing.
  • The Neanderthals are remembered by the Humans as a weak race unfit for survival in much the same way as the Xon are remembered by the Centauri.[1]
  • Evolution of several sentient species on one planet is not a unique occurrence in the Babylon 5 universe and is also shown in the history of the Hyach and the Hyach-do.[2]

References[]

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