Modern Man vs Neandertal: Who Wins?

Who Would Win in a Fight: a Modern Human or a Neanderthal?

A team of archaeologists, paleoanthropologists, and paleoartists has created a more accurate Neanderthal reconstruction, based on a nearly complete skeleton discovered in France more than 100 years ago. The La Ferrassie Neanderthal man was short but stocky. If a modern man came nose-to-nose with a Neanderthal, could he take him in a fight?

Nature has already performed this experiment, and we're here, and they're not.

Nevertheless, let's go on with the thought experiment.

Possibly. A Neanderthal would have a clear power advantage over his Homo sapiens opponent. Many of the Neanderthals archaeologists have recovered had Popeye forearms, possibly the result of a life spent stabbing wooly mammoths and straight-tusked elephants to death and dismantling their carcasses. Neanderthals also developed strong trapezius, deltoid, and tricep muscles by dragging 50 pounds of meat 30 miles home to their families. A Neanderthal had a wider pelvis and lower center of gravity than Homo sapiens, which would have made him a powerful grappler. That doesn’t mean, however, that we would be an easy kill for our extinct relative. Homo sapiens probably has a longer reach, on average, than Neanderthals did, and more stamina. Most importantly, we could deploy these advantages to maximum effect using our superior wits. It’s obviously speculative, but a modern man of above-average build would have an excellent chance of defeating a Neanderthal in hand-to-hand combat if he could keep his opponent at arm’s length, survive the initial onslaught, and wear him down.

Kind of like Cassius Clay Mohammed "Float like a butterfly sting like a bee" Ali and Joe Frazier at the Garden, in 1971.  Oh yeah, Ali lost that one.

The image of Neanderthal as a squat, chiseled brute is sometimes overstated. Based on the small number of known specimens, it appears that the males averaged 5 feet 5 inches tall, which is only 2 inches shorter than the average Chinese man today and 4 inches shorter than the average American man. Bone structures in many Neanderthal specimens suggest that their biceps were no larger than those of an average Homo sapiens, and some of the Neanderthals unearthed in the Middle East were as slender as modern humans.

I think I saw her in a seminar this week

 If these reconstructions are accurate, if you dressed them right, they could walk unnoticed in Boston.

Neanderthals also had an intellectual side: They decorated their bodies with sparkly paint and sea shells, and some archaeologists think they even played a primitive flute. There was tremendous variation in the build and ferocity of Neanderthals, as there is among modern humans. The probable result of any interspecies scrap, therefore, would depend on the individual combatants involved.

What a cop out.  In real science, you make a prediction, and test your hypothesis, even if you had to revive or breed Neandertal stand ins..


My thanks to Wombat-Socho at The Other McCain for his continual tolerance on "Rule 5 Sun-er, Tuesday."