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Were Neanderthals Devoured By Humans?
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that a Neanderthal jawbone covered in cut marks similar to those left behind when flesh is stripped from deer provides crucial evidence that humans attacked Neanderthals, and sometimes killed them, bringing back their bodies to caves to eat or to use their skulls or teeth as trophies. 'For years, people have tried to hide away from the evidence of cannibalism, but I think we have to accept it took place,' says Fernando Rozzi, of Paris's Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique. According to Rozzi, a discovery at Les Rois in south-west France provides compelling support for that argument. Previous excavations revealed bones that were thought to be exclusively human. But Rozzi's team re-examined them and found one they concluded was Neanderthal." (Continued, below.)
"Importantly, it was covered in cut marks similar to those left behind when flesh is stripped using stone tools. Not every team member agrees. 'One set of cut marks does not make a complete case for cannibalism,' says Francesco d'Errico, of the Institute of Prehistory in Bordeaux. It was also possible that the jawbone had been found by humans and its teeth used to make a necklace, he said. 'This is a very important investigation,' said Professor Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum, London. 'This does not prove we systematically eradicated the Neanderthals or that we regularly ate their flesh. But it does add to the evidence that competition from modern humans probably contributed to Neanderthal extinction.'"
Yep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_meat
Being eaten by humans is the single greatest threat to Bonobos, arguably the closest primate relative we humans have.
Of course the problem with bush meat is it is theorized that we as a species may have had various nasty diseases passed to us by eating bush meat, including possibly AIDS and a scary variant:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/file_on_4/3954963.stm
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
The problem is that modern biology shows that that line is arbitrary; common descent means that what appear to be separate "species" are just pairs of ring species where the intermediate populations have died off. And in particular, whether Neanderthals could or did breed with us is a controversial topic; the "did not breed" is the leading theory right now, but it hasn't killed the "did breed" one just yet.
Are you adequate?
"Human" is a term applicable to all members of the genus "Homo", just like "Chimpanzee" is the word for all members of "Pan" - the biological genus, that is, not the club (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Club_Copenhagen). As a note of interest, some biologists even argue that chimpanzees are biologically so close to us that they should be included in the same genus.
I suspect the idea that humans are somehow special and "more" than animals stems from the kind of religion we have traditionally practised here in the West, which is in many ways still a "famer- and shepherd religion". To most hunter/gatherers this distinction is unknown - the animals you hunt are seen as persons you have to respect; when we became farmers, animals became mere items that the Creator had made for our convenience.
And of, it isn't hard to see this traditional prejudice reflected in the constantly repeated "Humans vs Neanderthal" nonsense - something that continues despite the ever growing body of evidence that shows the Neanderthal Human to be a sophisticated creature with culture on par with our own at the time - there is evidence that they took care of their elderly and sick, such as the remains of a person who was clearly disabled, yet lived to adulthood, as well as eg. the "Divje Babe" flute (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_flute) which may be evidence that they practised music. They were clearly very clever hunters, possibly more so than Homo sapiens - a recent study suggests they hunted large prey actively rather than simply scavenging.
I was under the impression, that it was mandatory to be a pig or donkey, in order to be accepted for the membership of some Houses. Of course these are only mammalian options, there should be some quota for snakes etc. You know, I had an English teacher from whom I learned that there are three institutions insist on calling themselves "House". One contains not so sane people, another employs ladies with looser than average moral values, and the third contains people who should rather be in the other two House types.
It's called "bushmeat". African tribes are often driven to hunt it, due to famine. It's though that HIV may have transferred to humans via undercooked chimpanzee.
http://www.viceland.com/int/v14n10/htdocs/yo1.php?country=us&bettertitle
If some villagers in Borneo can keep an orangutan as a prostitute is it really that far fetched that at some point someone has fucked a chimp? Not that I think that's a more feasible way for the spread of disease, just that it's not exactly unheard of. And have you considered consensual chimp sex?