If a Homosapien kills a Neanderthal is it homicide or animal cruelty?

Question

Let's say Neanderthals were still alive today and a person kill one of them, would it be murder or animal cruelty? I mean even though they are so closely related to us they are not really considered fully human. What do you think?

Answer 1

Murder.

Answer 2

I think that would be an interesting legal debate. The question would be whether human legal rights apply only to biological Homo Sapiens or to people in the broadest sense of the word. And if we go for the latter interpretation, this opens up the issue of exactly where we are now to draw the line between people and animals, which is a whole other can of worms. I really don't know, I suspect the answer would depend on the outcome of the trial.

We'll probably encounter similar difficulties when we make contact with aliens.

Answer 3

I'm not sure. Maybe it would be a change in the dinner menu.
You can only eat so much chicken.

Seriously though, if Neanderthals were around it would depend on the status that we give them. Geico seems to place them on an even playing field with the rest of us. When an animal attempts to communicate with us, we tend to sort of remove them from our food chain. Then proceed to give them extra protection status. Example: dogs, cats.
Lassie seems to always say the that Timmy was trapped in the mine shaft, or that Timmy was being beat up by the school bully. Cats let us know that the litter box needs a really, really big change. Some apes have been taught to communicate through sign language. So if we kill them its animal cruelty. And rightfully so.

Answer 4

First, the root homo is the Greek word for man or human it was later selected as he genus for both us (H. sapiens) and Neanderthals (H. neanderthalensis). In response to one group never tolerating another the new evidence presented by the H.habilis skull being dated further back presents evidence of co-existing Homo species. Apes co-exist though they mostly ignore each other. The sad truth is that H. sapiens is an extremely destructive species and would likely hunt them to extinction. Look at the attitude towards Aboriginal Australians during the late 1th and 19th centuries. Look at American Indians during westward expansion. Look at Jews during the 1930s. We ave no problem exterminating people we consider our same species, why would we hesitate to kill another?

And fratricide is only the killing of your brother, strictly speaking, from the Latin word frater meaning brother. There is also matricide (killing mom), patricide (killing dad).

I would consider it homicide as the characteristics are close enough to consider them self-aware and able to fear death. As the Dalai Lama once said 'all men tremble before death'. But this does would do little to preserve them I fear.

Answer 5

The word HOMICIDE came from the root word Homosapien (for the HOMO) and the word kill or strike (for the CIDE). Technically, since Neanderthal is not considered as Homosapien - thus the different name - then it is safe to assume that the killing of a Neanderthal is not considered as homicide. It's the same thing as killing a chimp or primate no matter how intelligent they may be. You may probably call it animal slaughter which is the same thing when you kill a cattle in an animal slaughterhouse.

Answer 6

Actually the Neanderthal was the species of man that killed all of the previously dominant peoples who were herbivores. The Neanderthal died off long before homo sapiens came along and we were not killers, yet.

Answer 7

It sounds like Homo species did no longer kill off the Neanderthals - in fact, there is data of hybridisation between the two species. the likely concern is that we purely out-competed them; with our extra stepped forward techniques we've been waiting to conform to climactic exchange and the provision of latest ecological niches collectively as the Neanderthals weren't. God wasn't in contact - the extinction of the Neanderthal and the ecological radiation of Homo is a classic occasion of organic determination.

Answer 8

evidence points to them having self -consciousness and awareness of death and the future (given their burial ceremonies) so they would probably be classified human. They probably had more intelligence than the average Downs syndrome person, who is certainly human. The chances are that H Sapiens utterly wiped them off the face of the earth anyway, despite what politically correct documentaries will tell you - no hunting species is going to tolerate a congener competing with it when it can wipe it out easily.

Answer 9

With present laws it would be animal cruelty. But be assured that if we lived with any other homo 's the laws would be different.

Answer 10

murder