8 Billion People: Different World If Neanderthals Triumphed

The human population has exploded in evolutionary terms in a matter of seconds. When humans consider history, the fact that it has now surpassed 8 billion seems unfathomable. People seldom met other humans throughout the last millions of years of human existence. There were only approximately 10,000 Neanderthals alive at any one period, following a study from PLOS. Currently, there could be around 800,000 people living in the same area that one Neanderthal once inhabited. Furthermore, because people were living in social groupings, the next closest Neanderthal tribe was most likely more than 100 kilometers away. Finding a companion outside one's own family proved difficult, as explained in a report from a different finding from Nature.

Neanderthals preferred to stick with their familial groupings and were wary of strangers. If they had outcompeted the human species (Homo sapiens), the population density would have been far lower. Given their inherent proclivity to be less amicable to others beyond their own family, it's difficult to see them creating cities, for example. The origins of human rapid population expansion may date back more than 100,000 years. Mankind is more similar to farmed animal species due to genetic and physical distinctions between humans and extinct species like Neanderthals.

For example, large cattle flocks can withstand the stress of living in a tight space together better than their wild ancestors, who lived in tiny groups separated by large distances. These genetic variations influenced human sentiments toward persons not members of the same group. People become more tolerant. Because Homo sapiens interacted with groups other than their own, they developed a more diversified genetic pool, which reduced health concerns. Neanderthals in El Sidrón in Spain had 17 genetic abnormalities in only 13 persons. In subsequent groups of the same species, such mutations were almost non-existent. However, greater populations accelerate disease transmission.

Bringing Foods on the Table

Although Neanderthals had shorter lifetimes than modern people, their geographic isolation shielded them from contagious illnesses that killed off entire groups of Homo sapiens. Human species could also have reproduced at a 10%-20% quicker pace than earlier species, based on an analysis from Nature. However, having more offspring expands the population only when there is sufficient food to go around. The genetic proclivity for kindness emerged roughly 200,000 years ago. There is historical proof of raw materials for making tools transferred over the terrain more broadly from this period on. A White Rose University study states that humans established networks 100,000 years ago that allowed new forms of scavenging weapons plus ornaments, such as shell beads, to proliferate.

Phys report described the concepts were readily disseminated, and there were periodic gatherings of Homo sapiens for rituals, including socializing. When people run out of food, they may turn to friends in other groups. Furthermore, humans may have required more emotional interaction and new sorts of relationships outside of our human social spheres. Humans may have developed ties with creatures through domestication in an alternate universe where Neanderthals flourished. Things might have been different if the environment had not produced so many abrupt deficits, such as severe decreases in both animals and plants several times. Neanderthals may have lived if it hadn't been for these random modifications.

(Photo: Luca Lorenzelli/Shutterstock)
Neanderthal reproduction in Trento Museum of Natural History. What would the world look like if the Neanderthals prevailed in the world modern people lived in?

ALSO READ: What Did Neanderthals Eat? Ancient Tooth Provides Insights Into the Extinct Species' Diet Conundrum

Grand Environmental Shifts

Trading resources and concepts amongst groups enabled individuals to operate more effectively off the land by disseminating more effective technology and giving each other food in times of distress. This was most likely perhaps one of the major reasons why the human species survived as the environment changed while others died. Homo sapiens were more adaptable to weather variability and dangerous environments.

This is partially because the human species may rely on connections in distress. Temperatures throughout Europe were 8-10°C degrees colder than now during the peak of the final ice age roughly 20,000 years ago, with temperatures in Germany being closer to what northeastern Siberia is now. Most of northern Europe remained surrounded by ice for six to nine months each year.

Personal interactions enabled inventions to circulate throughout tribes, allowing humans to adapt, which include spear throwers to render hunting more practical, fine needles to construct fitting clothes and keep people warm, and food storage, including hunting with tamed wolves. As a result, more individuals escaped evolution's wheel of fortune. Homo sapiens were presumably more conscious of individual life cycles than many earlier forms of humans. When fishing for salmon, for example, they only took males.

Clever Ways in Food

Furthermore, in some situations, these life cycles were challenging to spot. Throughout the last ice age, mammoths, who roamed vast expanses unseen to human populations, were extinct. Almost a hundred drawings of wooly mammoths at Rouffignac of France dated before their extinction, indicating that humans mourn this loss. Therefore, mammoths are more likely to have survived if Homo sapiens had not evolved since there'd have been more Neanderthals to destroy them.

The present species was formed by human enjoyment for someone else's company or organization; spending quality time together encourages one's inventiveness. However, it came with a price. The more technology that humanity strengthens, the further our use destroys the environment, as per The Conversation.

Heavy cultivation depletes natural soils of nutrients; overfishing devastates the seas and the greenhouse gasses humans emit when people create the items society increasingly relies on to fuel extreme weather. Overexploitation was not unavoidable; nevertheless, humans were the first to do it. One can only hope that visual proof of the harm in the natural environment will learn from our mistakes over time. Despite the history, humans have changed fast when necessary. There still is, then again, no planet B.