Here's an interesting piece on the latest research, at National Geographic:
"Most Neanderthals and modern humans probably lived most of their lives without seeing each other," he said, carefully choosing his words. "The way I imagine it is that occasionally in these border areas, some of these guys would see each other at a distance...but I think the most likely thing is that they excluded each other from the landscape. Not just avoided, but excluded. We know from recent research on hunter-gatherers that they are much less peaceful than generally believed."
"Sometimes I just turn out the lights in here and think what it must have been like for them."
Nasty, brutish, short.
And many people have no idea how close we are to returning to those days, should things take a wrong turn.
My wife and I have had this conversation before. I don't think people realize how quickly mob rule can replace law and order.
I always enjoyed that British show Connections with James Burke. He showed how seemingly irrelevant events would culminate into ground break discoveries that we all obliviously take advantage of today. He would often turn this concept around and explain how if a handful of critical system went down today that we would quickly devolve from a technological standpoint.