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Perhaps some cultures' stories about "wild men" are about Neanderthals. Maybe Enkidu from the Epic of Gilgamesh was one.
by razorbeamz 7mo ago
Perhaps some cultures' stories about "wild men" are about Neanderthals.
Maybe Enkidu from the Epic of Gilgamesh was one.
- arlcode 7mo agoWithout being an expert that still seems very unlikely to me. The epic was written around 2000 BCE which was well over >> 10k years after agriculture and more than 4 times that much after neanderthals died out. It's possible but much more likely that they refer to something more contemporary. There are always "wild men" around no matter who you ask.
- poncho_romero 7mo agoI believe Enkidu also became much more wild over time. In Against the Grain the author suggests earlier tellings of Gilgamesh presented Enkidu as unusual, but human. When the same story was being recorded a thousand years later, he was a monster. If the story was preserving some ancient memory about Neanderthals, such significant change seems unlikely.
- asdff 7mo agoCould also just be someone with mental illness ostracized from society at the time.