willpell wrote:That is an intriguing theory. I've always felt as if dwarves were "more human" than elves, and this would certainly be one reason for it. Although they did make Neanderthals a playable race in Frostburn. Also, were IRL Neanderthals smaller than Cro-Magnon Man? I always thought they were slightly larger.ForgetsOldName wrote:Heard the news that the Neanderthals had better vision than early modern humans, at the cost of (ahem) social cognition? Adds further support to the theory that our cold-loving, gem-spotting, tough and hairy little cousins may be a based on ancient memory.Wolfie wrote:Then aye, you're a dwarf.
SourceZ Morphol Anthropol. 1998;82(1):1-12.
Body height, body mass and surface area of the Neanderthals.
Helmuth H.
Source
Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada.
Abstract
Body size, expressed as height or stature, is an important determinant of many other biological variables. Thus, it is surprising that many textbooks portray a wrong picture of Neanderthal height as being "very short" or "just over 5 feet". Based on 45 long bones from maximally 14 males and 7 females, Neanderthals' height averages between 164 and 168 (males) resp. 152 to 156 cm (females). This height is indeed 12-14 cm lower than the height of post-WWII Europeans, but compared to Europeans some 20,000 or 100 years ago, it is practically identical or even slightly higher. Considering the body build of Neanderthals, new body weight estimates show that they are only slightly above the cm/weight or the Body Mass Index of modern Americans or Canadians. The calculation of the relative surface area (approximately 240-244 cm2/kg) is very low and supports earlier findings of a morphological and anatomical thermoregulatory adaptation to a cold climate in the Neanderthals.
The kicker is that Europeans 100 years ago were not that tall compared to a lot of other populations. Cro-magnons seem to have been slightly taller on average, but there were some outliers that were much taller, over six feet. Pre-Columbian Americans seem to have been much taller than Europeans. Pre-agriculture humans were much taller than the Neanderthals. So it's possible to imagine a population of lean, lanky, Cro-magnons dwarfing the stocky, short armed, little guys.