OUR human ancestors thought the world of Neanderthals but not in the way they wanted, it has been claimed.
New research has cast doubt on claims that the two species interbred. However scientists believe this wasn’t for lack of the Neanderthals trying.
Professor Henry Brubaker of the Institute For Studies said: Cave painting evidence shows fertility rituals thrown by humans would often be attended by uninvited, socially awkward Neanderthal males.
“They would mope around on the perimeter of ceremony, occasionally making keening noises when the human female they had been following around for years began copulating with some handsome, cocky guy who didn’t have a hairy protruding forehead.
“Meanwhile female Neanderthals fashioned rudimentary ‘Forever Friends’ type cards out of bits of bark, usually depicting two stick figures hugging. They would get their friends to go into the human encampment and give the card to their favoured man before giggling and running off.
“Perhaps if recorded music technology had been several million years more advanced, the Neanderthals could have expressed their unrequited feelings through so-called ‘mix tapes’ of grunts and hoots.”
The dominance of human males came partly through their access to the wheel, an early status symbol which would later evolve into the car.
Professor Brubaker said: “Although having a wheel clearly isn’t as good as having a car, even the suggestion that these males might one day develop their own transport had a powerful aphrodisiac effect on the young impressionable females.
“However the existence of modern-days emos suggests that some Neanderthals did manage to get pity shags.”
