Planet Earth without humans

[space-time]

but Neanderthals were a species of humans

an extinct species of human in the genus Homo, possibly a subspecies of Homo sapiens

what other species would evolve?

[SteveG]

Randalls wrote:

Looks like a Kirby cover

[Article Accelerator]

space-time wrote:
Suppose that we, humans, never existed as a species; what would life on Earth look like?

An Earth without artifacts, of course.

what species would be most likely to develop a civilization as advanced as ours?

No other species. H o m o neanderthalensis (alternately, h o m o sapiens neanderthalensis) may have had some chance to do something close.

(I didn't know that Censor Robot objected to certain genus designations. Interesting.)

[davester]

The neanderthals may have been wiped out by ho mo (ho mo used with space to get around forum nanny filter) sapiens (but not before a bit of interbreeding, so we actually are apparently partially descendents of neanderthals), and had rudimentary tool-making abilities, so could have evolved more advanced intellects and civilizations.

If we were wiped out today, the bonobos (so called pygmy chimpanzees; aka pan paniscus) are probably the most intellectually advanced beings on earth other than ourselves, with emotional characteristics, language learning skills and tool-making and using skills similar to ho mo sapiens. It has been suggested that their skills are more advanced than those of some examples early ho mo sapiens. Regular chimpanzees (pan troglodytes) though not as advanced as bonobos, also have many of these skills. There have even been suggestions to change the scientific names of the chimpanzee species to ho mo paniscus and ho mo troglodytes because the chimps are barely different from humans.

[Acer]

Considering it's taken 4 billion years to get one civilization, the odds of a second arising before the sun makes this place inhabitable are pretty slim. However, if I had to pick, assuming neanderthals and primates are also off the table just to make it tougher, I'd say crows.

[Lew Zealand]

space-time wrote:
Suppose that we, humans, never existed as a species; what would life on Earth look like? what species would be most likely to develop a civilization as advanced as ours? what are your thoughts on this?

Where do you want the split to happen? If anytime after 6-7MYA, then just another version of Hom.o or Australopithecus/Zinjanthropus/hominid line of choice. The upright walking and non-specialised hands probably would have allowed one of the hominids to evolve along a similar route that we did.

Earlier? Maybe some version of pre-chimp or pre-gorilla hominoids would go the same way to fill the same ecological niche. But then again, maybe not.

Earlier?? No great apes, eh, just monkey ancestors? Again, they could have evolved another larger-bodied clade similar to great apes or maybe baboon-shaped monkey ancestors could have taken up the ecological niche slack. This is getting very unlikely, however. There's no need for any intelligence greater than a baboon or dolphin or wolf on this or any planet.

Earlier??? Non-primate mammals need a pretty big body-plan reorganization to arrive at the non-specialization from which we humans benefit. Rodents are probably the next probable mammals with reasonable hands for manipulating detailed tools (down the evolutionary road).

But think of the dental bills!

[Rick-o]

[davester]

Acer wrote:
Considering it's taken 4 billion years to get one civilization, the odds of a second arising before the sun makes this place inhabitable are pretty slim. However, if I had to pick, assuming neanderthals and primates are also off the table just to make it tougher, I'd say crows.

The 4 billion year number gets bandied about a lot when questions like this come up, but it is very misleading. The early earth had no life or environments supportive of life so is irrelevant. It is not until around 600 million years ago that complex life existed on earth, and it was probably not until a couple of hundred million years ago that central nervous systems of any complexity arose. Now we have millions of species with complex nervous systems and brains that could potentially evolve into civilization creating species in just a couple of million years, the same time frame that we evolved from primitive chimp-like creatures into creatures capable of destroying our entire habitat.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

davester wrote:
[quote=Acer]
Considering it's taken 4 billion years to get one civilization, the odds of a second arising before the sun makes this place inhabitable are pretty slim. However, if I had to pick, assuming neanderthals and primates are also off the table just to make it tougher, I'd say crows.

The 4 billion year number gets bandied about a lot when questions like this come up, but it is very misleading. The early earth had no life or environments supportive of life so is irrelevant. It is not until around 600 million years ago that complex life existed on earth, and it was probably not until a couple of hundred million years ago that central nervous systems of any complexity arose. Now we have millions of species with complex nervous systems and brains that could potentially evolve into civilization creating species in just a couple of million years, the same time frame that we evolved from primitive chimp-like creatures into creatures capable of destroying our entire habitat.
Also, technically speaking, numerous civilizations have come and gone during mankind's time on earth.

[Randalls]

The comic was indeed done by Kirby...

"Kamandi is an American comic book character, created by artist Jack Kirby and published by DC Comics.
Kamandi is a young hero in a post-apocalyptic future. After a huge event called "The Great Disaster," humans have been reduced to savagery in a world ruled by intelligent, highly evolved animals."