http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5862

http://www.themandus.org

http://bearfabrique.org/Catastrophism/Prehistory/Prehistory.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZbmywzGAVs

The large size and hair covering do indeed make it difficult to associate the Basajuan (and Almasty/Bigfoot) with the Neanderthals. But, body size and level of hair are, I believe, characteristics that can change relatively quickly by evolution, given the right conditions (eg. Ice Age). We still have the same number of hair follicles as a chimpanzee, so presumably the Neanderthal did too. So, not impossible. I’d nevertheless still favour the idea that they are a separate species/sub-species.

Aren’t the Basque, according to one theory, thought to be the descendents of the Cro-Magnon people, who had a different and far more sophisticated culture than the other Indo-European stone age tribes (eg. the Lascaux cave paintings vs. Venus figurines)?

For instance, the Basque language is a linguistic anomaly. It is completely unrelated to the other European languages and it is suggested that it descends from the/an original cave-man language, as indicated by some Basque words. The word for ceiling in Basque is literally ‘roof of the cave’ and the word for knife is something like ‘sharp stone.’

I don’t know where the Cro-Magnon culture came from, though I understand it is a bit of a mystery as it arrives very suddenly in the archeological record, I understand. One hypothesis that I’ve come across, is that it came from invading tribes from the lost island civilisation of Atlantis, west off the African coast (if true, it is likely to be a now submerged part of the volcanically active Mid-Atlantic ridge).

The idea that the Basque/European culture (or parts of it) came from the Neanderthals seems rather hard to accept. I didn’t know that the Neanderthals had such a high level of culture – this doesn’t come over in the archeological record (does it?).

What sort of tools were found in the caves? Aurignacian? Moustrian? something else?

I’ll reply to FrankGHaymes, as no one else has. Apart from the two hominoids mentioned in this article (simiots and Basajuan), which I had not heard of before, the only other hominoid that I know is reported to exist in Europe is the Almasty (also called Leshi, Chuchuuna, or various other regional names). This is the Old World version of Bigfoot. It is found across a very large area spanning from Eastern Europe, right across the vast expanses of Russia and adjoining Central Asian countries of the ex-Soviet bloc (Georgia, Kazakstan). (When I say ‘found’, I mean there are, in most areas, reported sightings by locals in modern and historic times, plus material evidence/sightings found by independent researchers). As in America, it is almost wholly reported in remote and forested or mountainous locations. However, there is a lot of this throughout the large geographic area I’ve described.

As for Europe specifically, I have read reports indicating its presence in the Baltic states, Belarus and Ukraine. This seems to be the eastern frontier of the Almasty in Eurasia.

The Almasty has been researched by small groups of researchers in much of these regions for the last 40 years or so. It seems that a fair amount is now known about their behaviour (eg. migration routes). However, much of this is published in Russian, and this information is only now starting to be translated into English and starting to be more accessible to Westerners.

This is just a summary of what I have learnt from reading about this subject in the last few months. Hopefully some experts will correct/add to this, if I have missed out some regions/hominoids.

Hope this helps.