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Until the recent discovery of Neanderthal DNA, I hadn't realized that this species actually existed side by side with homo sapiens. (I had naively assumed homo sapiens descended from primitive Neanderthals).
There's something I always wondered and, while attending the Templeton science and religion conference, I had the opportunity to quiz a real espert, Lord Colin Renfrew, an esteemed Cambridge professor of archeology.
The question is a bit prurient so I waited until after class and then asked: what would happen if a fesity young Neanderthal woman and a strapping young homo sapien male caught each other's eyes across the field? Would they view inter-species love as being grotesque the way most of us view, say, mating with an ape?
On the contrary, reports Renfo, they would probably have seemed so similar that inter-breeding could have been possible. Indeed, he said, some paleontologists believe they have found fossil records of such cross breeding.
Genetics aside, can you imagine how the parents must have reacted to the news that their impetuous offspring had decided to date a different species? I can hear the homo sapien parent grunting, "no son of mine is going to hang around with that trash. Have you ever seen how tacky their hand axes are?" Or the Neandertha's mom saying, "those homo sapiens think their better than everyone, with their snooty art collections and bevelled beads."
But (at least according to my version of the screenplay) the young lovers would persist, creating a new cross-bred family honoring the noble traditions of both.
UPDATE: Cathy Grossman at USA Today focused on a more meaninful part of his lecture, the idea that since our genetic structure hasn't changed much in 100,000 years, Darwinian principles can't explain much about human evolution.
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Some say feminism killed the Neanderthals. Fascinating!
http://bookstoysgames.wordpress.com/2007/11/11/feminism-why-the-neanderthals-became-extinct/
Those chance events were probably closer to rape than dating. With the differences between the two species, or sub-species, there was more likely more hostility than cooperation and good will between the two.
Remember, those events, whether rare or not, would most likely have happened between 50,000 and 150,000 years ago, long before recorded history began some 7,000-9,000 years ago.
It is doubtful that they could breed true, if at all. The differences in the DNA, while tiny, are still more than sufficient to prevent it. More likely there was that great, final scene when the army of Homo Sapiens, armed with spears, attacks the last Neanderthals with a mighty battle cry of "EVOLUTION!"
Wolves are dogs and of the same species. Wolves are just another breed of dog or wild dogs. Chimps are a different species than humans about 98.5% identical. Chimps have 48 chromosomes while humans have 46.
And they would not have prostituted themselves to an insurance company to make poor TV commercials into a poorer sitcom.
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