Based on my guys turning inside out the minute I see these pictures, I have a hunch this guy's art is accurate to what the species actually looked like.
Apes and humans are completely different species and the Neantherdal skulls are definitely more apelike.
Assuming he’s correct, I wouldn’t mind seeing his work on Cro-magnan skulls to see what they look like without anthropomorphism.
I agree Laz, in spite of Nat’l Geographic’s pictorial presentations that tried to make them look much like us, I have always felt that this is what they really looked like.
The Cro-Magnons, frequently identified as ancestral to the Europeans and Chinese, had a larger brain than modern man, and were a tad taller ~ probably from a better diet based on wild game, nuts, berries and roots.
During the last quarter of the latest period of glacial advance most European, North Asian and East Asian populations were confined to small unglaciated areas called "refugia". Modern populations are descended from these small groups ~ each is differentiated by various minor gene differences.
The Sa'ami seem to have retained many more of the specific differences that identify the Cro-Magnon people and to a degree may better represent the ancestral population of most of the people in the world.
There have been some changes. Southern tribes gave up living on ice and hunting reindeer and seals. They developed agriculture and animal domestication which changed their diet to the far more unhealthy one of bread and boiled beef. This has led to other, less valuable, genetic differentiation.
Oh. You'd hit it? That's a surprise. Not.
Re: pictures 3, 5, and 6 - Morlocks as they really should be depicted. Stuff of nightmares.
Predator, that’s what you’re seeing and sensing. Sets off a primordial response. If there were instances of populations crossing paths, I have a pretty good sense of who wanted to kill and eat whom.
Of course, it’s an artist’s conceptualization and could very well be wildly wrong. It illicits the response intended.
I know what you mean. Thing scares the crap out of me too.
I had an incident last year where I left my secluded cabin
in the woods at night. No light, I'm familiar enough to find
my Jeep in the dark. I went a few steps and all of a sudden
was terrified. Almost couldn't make it to the Jeep. Shook
and sweat all the way home. I finally figured out that I
had smelled something. A few weeks later there was cougar
killed in the area. I wonder if I smelled one and that part
of my brain screamed “predator”.
I’m sure the reaction comes from decades of horror movies, which frankly have more credibility than this Australian free-form fantasy based on bad sci-fi.
Not a Neanderthal.
Thanks for the pings though.
I had exactly the same reaction. I wanted to grab a weapon immediately.