>That is, if you were from Europe and went to Africa and found gorillas, would
>you think, "Wow, they are just like us so they must be humans!"?
The Hanno expedition did something like that.
At the end of it was an island like the first one, with a lake in
which was another island full of savages. The greater parts of these
were women. They had hairy bodies and the interpreters called them
Gorillas. We pursued some of the males but we could not catch a single one
because they were good climbers and they defended themselves fiercely.
However, we managed to take three women. They bit and scratched their
captors, whom they did not want to follow. We killed them and removed the
skins to take back to Carthage. We sailed no further, being short
of supplies."
The Hanno expedition
http://www.barca.fsnet.co.uk/hanno-voyage.htm
The modern species of gorilla was named by a missionary who had read this description (although it's more probable that what Hanno actually encountered were chimpanzees).
--Peter Metcalfe
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