Anthropology

genocidal tendencies in Sapiens. I was criticizing the guy who came up with that as the only, or main cause of Neanderthal extinction.

Second, I do not believe that Sapiens is not capable of genocidal behavior. Not sure why you got the impression that I do think that. Maybe I was not clear enough in saying that I think that both Sapiens and Neanderthal share a common ancestor with chimps. In other words, chimps have an ancestor that we and Neanderthal also have. So, if chimps are capable of genocide, perhaps we Sapiens and now extinct Neanderthals also inherited that capability. Therefore, both Sapiens and Neanderthal might have fought each other brutally. But where is the evidence? Where are the marks of it in Neanderthal remains?

Nobody with even a smidgeon of knowledge about history would think that modern humans do not commit genocide. It is happening today in Russian attacks in Ukraine. It is happening in Sudan. It happened in the Holocaust. It happened in the Americas when Europeans arrived.

Regarding virgin populations being exposed to new diseases and dying from them, there is a significant factor in the European spread of diseases to the Americas and elsewhere that probably did not exist among Neanderthal and Sapiens several thousands of years ago.

Sapiens and Neanderthal did not have tamed herds of animals. Europeans who came to America did. Close daily proximity to animals who can carry diseases, or to the parasites that live on those animals (like fleas) made a difference in how Native populations were affected by those diseases.

It was known even before inoculation against smallpox that milkmaids and dairy farmers were least likely to get smallpox or to have a serious case of it if they did. That's because of their exposure to the milder, related cowpox. They developed an immunity. Other animals carry other types of diseases that Europeans had been exposed to due to having domesticated animals that Native Americans did not have. Goats, for example, can carry a virus that is capable of making humans very sick if not previously exposed to goats. (It happened to me about 7 years ago.)

My father, who had mixed Native ancestry from both sides of his family, grew up on a dairy farm. Among his chores were cleaning the cow barn, leading the cows out to pasture, and then leading them back to the barn later. Even before he was old enough to do that, he followed his older siblings when they did it. When he had to get vaccinated for smallpox before going to school, the vaccine did not take. He was immune.

It was the proximity to disease carrying animals that allowed some diseases to spread to humans, but it was also regular exposure on a nearly daily basis that made some people able to tolerate the diseases, or even to acquire immunity to them.

The ancient Sapiens who encountered Neanderthal when Sapiens left Africa were not herders. It's possible, perhaps, that the first generation of Sapiens carried other diseases that existed in Africa, like malaria, but could the mosquito that carries the parasites that cause malaria have survived in ice age Europe?

Neanderthal had been in Europe and parts of Asia for many millennia before Sapiens arrived. They were accustomed to the diseases of their environment. But Sapiens wasn't.