I've always enjoyed the theory that the Wild Man figure is a cultural memory of the last days of the Neanderthal. It's a bit far-fetched, since they've been gon

I've always enjoyed the theory that the Wild Man figure is a cultural memory of the last days of the Neanderthal. It's a bit far-fetched, since they've been gone for a very long time, but recent realization of specific cultural memories on the order of 10,000 years (and of more schematic ideas like the Pleiades for even longer) suggests it may be possible.