[littlestymaar]

> and carried off and raped our women. (How did you think the Neanderthal DNA got into our genome?)

I don't know if Neandertals were rapist, but given the behavior of Sapiens, it wouldn't be completely surprising if it was in fact the opposite: Sapiens abducting Neandertal females and raping them…

[SubiculumCode]

Obviously it is both. Rape in nature is extremely common (as defined by female trying to escape, but male pinning it down). There is no reason that both neanderthal and homo-sapient males wouldn't have engaged in this behavior...as it is only cultural taboos, norms, and theory of mind that prevent its occurrence.

[JoeAltmaier]

One data point: a Homo Sapiens settlement with a child burial who was 1/8 Neanderthal. May have been born in the settlement? That original mother may have been of the settlement. Anyway three generations of mixed heritage, and still worth burying with reverence.

[Igelau]

That's kind of tricky considering how much stronger and more robust an average Neanderthal would have been compared to an average Sapiens.

[littlestymaar]

Ambush, outnumbering, night raiding, etc. War is almost never a matter of who have the upper hand in a one-vs-one fair combat…

[AbrahamParangi]

They were approximately the same size as us. Shorter but wider and on the whole around the same weight.

[jtms]

Size and weight being the same doesn't mean they weren't far strong than homo sapiens. We are quite a bit bigger and heavier than chimps, but chimps are about twice as strong as a typical human.

[littlestymaar]

> We are quite a bit bigger and heavier than chimps, but chimps are about twice as strong as a typical human.

How is strength measured here? Because that sounds strange for two species that close genetically speaking to have such a big difference on how muscles work. I would expect 1kg of chimp muscle to have roughly the same strength as one 1kg of human muscle, and having a muscle/whole body mass ratio in the same ballpark. But our muscles are localized fairly differently, with much more muscles in our lower body so depending how you measure, you could get really different results.

Also, the typical industrial-world-human is pretty weak compared to what the average humans can be under the right conditions so it may bias the measure too.

[AbrahamParangi]

We are also far more closely related to Neanderthals than to chimps. Also it’s not like there’s any correlation between % Neanderthal DNA and physical strength.

The probable explanation is that they were extremely human in nearly all respects.