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Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art
Since their discovery more than 160 years ago, Neanderthals have metamorphosed from the losers of the human family tree to A-list hominins.
In Kindred, Rebecca Wragg Sykes uses her experience at the cutting-edge of Palaeolithic research to share our new understanding of Neanderthals, shoving aside clichés of rag-clad brutes in an icy wasteland. She reveals them to be curious, clever connoisseurs of their world, technologically inventive and ecologically adaptable. Above all, they were successful survivors for more than 300,000 years, during times of massive climatic upheaval.
At a time when our species has never faced greater threats, we’re obsessed with what makes us special. But, much of what defines us was also in Neanderthals, and their DNA is still inside us. Planning, co-operation, altruism, craftsmanship, aesthetic sense, imagination... perhaps even a desire for transcendence beyond mortality.
It is only by understanding them, that we can truly understand ourselves.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published October 27, 2020
1,464 people are currently reading
10.6k people want to read
About the author
Rebecca Wragg Sykes
3Ìýbooks137ÌýfollowersDr Rebecca Wragg Sykes is an archaeologist, author and Honorary Fellow in the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool. Her critically acclaimed and bestselling first book KINDRED: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art is a deep dive into the 21st century science and understanding of these ancient relatives.
Winner of the 2021 PEN Hessell-Tiltman prize for history; awarded Book of the Year by Current Archaeology; selected as one of 2021's 100 Notable Books by The New York Times, a Book of the Year by The Sunday Times, Book of the Week by The Times and Book of the Day by The Guardian, KINDRED is being translated into 19 languages so far.
Alongside her academic expertise and consultancy work, Rebecca has earned a reputation for exceptional public communication, with her writing featuring in The New York Times, The Times, The Guardian, Aeon and elsewhere. She is a popular speaker, appearing on a variety of radio and podcast programmes including for the BBC and NPR.
Winner of the 2021 PEN Hessell-Tiltman prize for history; awarded Book of the Year by Current Archaeology; selected as one of 2021's 100 Notable Books by The New York Times, a Book of the Year by The Sunday Times, Book of the Week by The Times and Book of the Day by The Guardian, KINDRED is being translated into 19 languages so far.
Alongside her academic expertise and consultancy work, Rebecca has earned a reputation for exceptional public communication, with her writing featuring in The New York Times, The Times, The Guardian, Aeon and elsewhere. She is a popular speaker, appearing on a variety of radio and podcast programmes including for the BBC and NPR.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 578 reviews
November 12, 2022
I liked it, but with some reservations.
Whether you enjoy this book or not depends on whether you ever find textbooks enjoyable. I’m that oddball who sometimes does, and it mostly worked for me. If you expect science and detail (although passionate, even in the drier sections), you’ll get that. If you expect a bit more engaging popular science approach, you’ll probably find this book a bit lacking.
Rebecca Wragg Sykes clearly loves Neanderthals and wants to make sure you do, too � but she brings her appreciation through pretty dense academic-like writing full of details and minutia, all of varying levels of interest (that chapter on lithic tools was a pretty effective soporific, but social structures/children/death chapters were fascinating). And while I’m at it, I found it interesting how much of our knowledge is based on tiny bits of data and a lot of supposition and logic, and how many conclusions are drawn based on conjecture and applying common sense. We have so little to base conclusions on, really � a few remains, some DNA, a few locations where Neanderthals were found, and a lot of scientific zeal to keep ideas going.
Overall it’s a decent effort to showcase our enigmatic long-gone (except in a few genes of many of us) hominid cousins in all their glory. They were an odd bunch to our H. Sapiens eyes, from their powerful appearance to apparently “butchering� their dead in what seems to be possibly reverence rather than just cannibalism. Forget the brute ape-like creatures envisioned in the 19th century; she wants us to see them as truly kindred to us.
3.5 stars.
—â¶Ä”â¶Ä”â¶Ä”â¶Ä”â¶Ä�
Also posted on .
Whether you enjoy this book or not depends on whether you ever find textbooks enjoyable. I’m that oddball who sometimes does, and it mostly worked for me. If you expect science and detail (although passionate, even in the drier sections), you’ll get that. If you expect a bit more engaging popular science approach, you’ll probably find this book a bit lacking.
Rebecca Wragg Sykes clearly loves Neanderthals and wants to make sure you do, too � but she brings her appreciation through pretty dense academic-like writing full of details and minutia, all of varying levels of interest (that chapter on lithic tools was a pretty effective soporific, but social structures/children/death chapters were fascinating). And while I’m at it, I found it interesting how much of our knowledge is based on tiny bits of data and a lot of supposition and logic, and how many conclusions are drawn based on conjecture and applying common sense. We have so little to base conclusions on, really � a few remains, some DNA, a few locations where Neanderthals were found, and a lot of scientific zeal to keep ideas going.
Overall it’s a decent effort to showcase our enigmatic long-gone (except in a few genes of many of us) hominid cousins in all their glory. They were an odd bunch to our H. Sapiens eyes, from their powerful appearance to apparently “butchering� their dead in what seems to be possibly reverence rather than just cannibalism. Forget the brute ape-like creatures envisioned in the 19th century; she wants us to see them as truly kindred to us.
“Let’s finish our shared journey through these pages by letting your guard down. Push against the impossible, and perform a quantum shift back in time to the Pleistocene. Close your eyes and pick a world: a grassy plain under cool winter sun; a warm forest track, soft loam underfoot; or a now-sunken rocky coast, gulls� cries salting the air. Now listen, step forward, she’s here […]
Neanderthal. Human. Kindred.�
3.5 stars.
—â¶Ä”â¶Ä”â¶Ä”â¶Ä”â¶Ä�
Also posted on .
September 30, 2021
This book presents a thorough description of the current knowledge that has been developed about Neanderthals. Any reader who begins this book with the smug impression that it's about an inferior branch of the human family will soon learn that Archaeologist and science writer Rebecca Wragg Sykes believes otherwise. If there's one core message that comes through this book, it is that Neanderthal's cognitive skills were equal to that of Homo sapiens. Their hunting and tool making skills permitted them to adapt to widely varied climates over a period of 350,000 years in locations ranging from Western Europe to the steppes of Central Asia to the fringes of the Arabian dessert. Their problem solving skills appear to have been on par with contemporaneous Homo sapiens.
Through the process of describing what is known about Neanderthals the book also reveals the power of recently developed scientific methods that permit paleontologists and archaeologists to extract amazing details regarding the lives of Neanderthals. DNA analysis has revealed ancient secrets, the findings of which would have previously been unfathomable. In particular it has shown that a portion of Neanderthal DNA continues to live within most of today's human population as 2% to 4% of their genome.
In addition to the DNA information, I was amazed to learn what can be learned from careful analysis of baby teeth taken from collections of Neanderthal remains. From the teeth scientists were able to estimate the probable number of times that a particular group changed living locations during a year's time, and they were also able to determine the age at which the child was weaned (and if the weaning was gradual or sudden). I was also amazed at the attention to detail demonstrated by researchers when they digitized the dimensional shapes and size of numerous knapping waste pieces in order to have the computer figure out the shape and size of spearheads taken from the site. Furthermore, the explanations of knapping methods included in this book are probably more detailed than what some readers have patience to read. Nevertheless, it is made clear that knapping is a skill that requires much knowledge and practice and most likely required intergenerational teaching.
On average Neanderthals had larger overall brain sizes than modern humans. They had flatter foreheads than Homo sapiens which provided less space for the frontal cortex which is connected to higher cognitive functions such as impulse control, problem solving, and social interaction. The Neanderthal brain provided more space for vision and movement perception. It is speculated that Homo sapiens� brain was better suited for forming large social groups. Since the frontal cortex is associated with language ability some have questioned the Neanderthals speaking abilities, however computer modeling suggests that their vocal cords could make a range of sounds similar to ours.
It’s true that there are no examples of representational art have been found created by Neanderthals. However, neither are there examples of representational art among Homo sapiens prior to 45,000 years ago. Neanderthals in many places used a variety of pigments and may have ornamented themselves with feathers. Examples of using mixtures of tree resin and beeswax to make an adhesive have been found. One group engraved a cross-hatched grid pattern on the floor of Gorham’s Cave, Gibraltar. Among their more mysterious creations are two rings of snapped off stalagmites, arranged on the chamber floor of a cave near the French village of Bruniquel, dating to about 177,000 years ago.
The reason(s) why the Neanderthal population died out is not entirely clear. The encroachment of Homo sapiens may have out competed them, but there's an element of luck involved in determining species survival. For example, some paleontologist theorized that there was a near extinction of Homo sapiens about 70,000 years ago. Also, the first Homo sapiens to settle in Europe after the Neanderthal can be considered as extinct as the Neanderthal because most of the genome of modern day Europeans is descended from ancient north Eurasians who later migrated from the east. (Today's Sardinians are the closest relatives to ancestral Europeans because the mixing with north Eurasians didn't reach them.)
I found the following excerpt from the book of special interest because it discusses the genome advantages that may have been inherited from the Neanderthals (Sub-Saharan Africans excepted). I've placed it within the spoiler link to keep this review from appearing to be ridiculously long.
Here's an article that indicates that severe reaction to COVID is inherited from the Neanderthals:
Here's an article that says the Neanderthal ate a diet rich in carbohydrates:
Here's an article that says the Neanderthal gene diversity became reduced over time:
Interesting lecture on mixture of DNA between humans and Neanderthal:
New cave chamber found, possible Neanderthal occupation:
Through the process of describing what is known about Neanderthals the book also reveals the power of recently developed scientific methods that permit paleontologists and archaeologists to extract amazing details regarding the lives of Neanderthals. DNA analysis has revealed ancient secrets, the findings of which would have previously been unfathomable. In particular it has shown that a portion of Neanderthal DNA continues to live within most of today's human population as 2% to 4% of their genome.
In addition to the DNA information, I was amazed to learn what can be learned from careful analysis of baby teeth taken from collections of Neanderthal remains. From the teeth scientists were able to estimate the probable number of times that a particular group changed living locations during a year's time, and they were also able to determine the age at which the child was weaned (and if the weaning was gradual or sudden). I was also amazed at the attention to detail demonstrated by researchers when they digitized the dimensional shapes and size of numerous knapping waste pieces in order to have the computer figure out the shape and size of spearheads taken from the site. Furthermore, the explanations of knapping methods included in this book are probably more detailed than what some readers have patience to read. Nevertheless, it is made clear that knapping is a skill that requires much knowledge and practice and most likely required intergenerational teaching.
On average Neanderthals had larger overall brain sizes than modern humans. They had flatter foreheads than Homo sapiens which provided less space for the frontal cortex which is connected to higher cognitive functions such as impulse control, problem solving, and social interaction. The Neanderthal brain provided more space for vision and movement perception. It is speculated that Homo sapiens� brain was better suited for forming large social groups. Since the frontal cortex is associated with language ability some have questioned the Neanderthals speaking abilities, however computer modeling suggests that their vocal cords could make a range of sounds similar to ours.
It’s true that there are no examples of representational art have been found created by Neanderthals. However, neither are there examples of representational art among Homo sapiens prior to 45,000 years ago. Neanderthals in many places used a variety of pigments and may have ornamented themselves with feathers. Examples of using mixtures of tree resin and beeswax to make an adhesive have been found. One group engraved a cross-hatched grid pattern on the floor of Gorham’s Cave, Gibraltar. Among their more mysterious creations are two rings of snapped off stalagmites, arranged on the chamber floor of a cave near the French village of Bruniquel, dating to about 177,000 years ago.
The reason(s) why the Neanderthal population died out is not entirely clear. The encroachment of Homo sapiens may have out competed them, but there's an element of luck involved in determining species survival. For example, some paleontologist theorized that there was a near extinction of Homo sapiens about 70,000 years ago. Also, the first Homo sapiens to settle in Europe after the Neanderthal can be considered as extinct as the Neanderthal because most of the genome of modern day Europeans is descended from ancient north Eurasians who later migrated from the east. (Today's Sardinians are the closest relatives to ancestral Europeans because the mixing with north Eurasians didn't reach them.)
I found the following excerpt from the book of special interest because it discusses the genome advantages that may have been inherited from the Neanderthals (Sub-Saharan Africans excepted). I've placed it within the spoiler link to keep this review from appearing to be ridiculously long.
Here's an article that indicates that severe reaction to COVID is inherited from the Neanderthals:
Here's an article that says the Neanderthal ate a diet rich in carbohydrates:
Here's an article that says the Neanderthal gene diversity became reduced over time:
Interesting lecture on mixture of DNA between humans and Neanderthal:
New cave chamber found, possible Neanderthal occupation:
May 18, 2021
, a contemporary British Paleolithic archeologist specializing in Neanderthals and other extinct archaic humans, gives us here a book that will appeal to both the general public and the well informed. I didn’t understand everything but enough to make the book extremely interesting. When meaning is unclear, enough information is provided to make search on the web easy. A comprehensive bibliography is available online.
The book’s scope is comprehensive. Cutting-edge information is presented. In the last two decades, study of ancient DNA has ballooned the quantity of data available.
*Neanderthals appeared 450 000 to 400 000 years ago.
*They split from Denisovans 400 000 years ago.
*Neanderthals existed for 350 000 years.
*40 000 years ago, they disappeared, but we carry Denisovan and Neanderthal genes still today.
Research has shown that modern humans overlapped with Denisovan and Neanderthal populations, and that they had children together, that they interbred. Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals interbred 47 000 - 55 000 years ago. Homo Sapiens and Denisovans interbred 44 000 - 54 000 years ago. During the last 200 000 years, there are at least three, but potentially six periods when Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals interbred. Humans today have Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA, in small but varying quantities. In the context of current times, it has been said that this DNA increases the risk of serious Covid-19 illness. See link below.
It is amazing what new studies indicate about Neanderthal life. Their tools, how they used and reshaped them, their clothes, their ability to communicate, their peregrinations, their art. their intuitiveness and their ability to innovate are examples of the wide range of topics discussed. Their perception of death is analyzed from a perspective that is not ours. It is just such analysis that makes the book above the ordinary.
One example--tooth marks on the bones of the dead were shown to indicate cannibalism. Although repugnant to our way of thinking, through cannibalism one individual absorbs another individual into their being. One might do this as a way to preserve the dead and to honor them. It is necessary to view behavior from a perspective different from our own.
Reading of the Neanderthal art discovered in 2016 is jaw-dropping. Stone ring structures of cut stalagmites and accompanying hearth fires layered one on top of another were found in the Bruniquel Cave of southwestern France. Images are available on the net.
Sykes explains how new scientific material leads to the conclusions drawn. Despite that I don’t always comprehend her thought processes, I appreciate her method of analysis.
What led to the extinction of the Neanderthals? Dramatic climatic changes might be a cause, but these they had survived multiple times before. Competition with the ever increasing number of Homo Sapiens for natura resources is another possible explanation. In addition, a larger portion of the human brain is tied to social skills. This gives us an advantage over them. There exist contagion theories too. There is today no conclusive answer.
Sometimes, the writing is longwinded. Two examples are the lengthy introduction and a section on Neanderthals in literature. For the most part, I liked the book’s comprehensiveness.
Basically, I like this book because the author draws an up to date picture of what we know of the Neanderthal people. I like how she reasons through known facts and draws conclusions. Through the study of our ancestors, we will come to better understand ourselves. The new DNA research opens up vistas that are tremendously exciting.
In the past, the capabilities of Neanderthals have not been properly understood. This book begins to set the record straight.
The author narrates her audiobook. She speaks at a good, steady pace. At times I had to rewind because I I had difficulty distinguishing some words. The narration I have given three stars. I do wish there had been a PDF with maps.
*
* 4 stars by
* 4 stars by
Covid-19 article:
The book’s scope is comprehensive. Cutting-edge information is presented. In the last two decades, study of ancient DNA has ballooned the quantity of data available.
*Neanderthals appeared 450 000 to 400 000 years ago.
*They split from Denisovans 400 000 years ago.
*Neanderthals existed for 350 000 years.
*40 000 years ago, they disappeared, but we carry Denisovan and Neanderthal genes still today.
Research has shown that modern humans overlapped with Denisovan and Neanderthal populations, and that they had children together, that they interbred. Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals interbred 47 000 - 55 000 years ago. Homo Sapiens and Denisovans interbred 44 000 - 54 000 years ago. During the last 200 000 years, there are at least three, but potentially six periods when Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals interbred. Humans today have Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA, in small but varying quantities. In the context of current times, it has been said that this DNA increases the risk of serious Covid-19 illness. See link below.
It is amazing what new studies indicate about Neanderthal life. Their tools, how they used and reshaped them, their clothes, their ability to communicate, their peregrinations, their art. their intuitiveness and their ability to innovate are examples of the wide range of topics discussed. Their perception of death is analyzed from a perspective that is not ours. It is just such analysis that makes the book above the ordinary.
One example--tooth marks on the bones of the dead were shown to indicate cannibalism. Although repugnant to our way of thinking, through cannibalism one individual absorbs another individual into their being. One might do this as a way to preserve the dead and to honor them. It is necessary to view behavior from a perspective different from our own.
Reading of the Neanderthal art discovered in 2016 is jaw-dropping. Stone ring structures of cut stalagmites and accompanying hearth fires layered one on top of another were found in the Bruniquel Cave of southwestern France. Images are available on the net.
Sykes explains how new scientific material leads to the conclusions drawn. Despite that I don’t always comprehend her thought processes, I appreciate her method of analysis.
What led to the extinction of the Neanderthals? Dramatic climatic changes might be a cause, but these they had survived multiple times before. Competition with the ever increasing number of Homo Sapiens for natura resources is another possible explanation. In addition, a larger portion of the human brain is tied to social skills. This gives us an advantage over them. There exist contagion theories too. There is today no conclusive answer.
Sometimes, the writing is longwinded. Two examples are the lengthy introduction and a section on Neanderthals in literature. For the most part, I liked the book’s comprehensiveness.
Basically, I like this book because the author draws an up to date picture of what we know of the Neanderthal people. I like how she reasons through known facts and draws conclusions. Through the study of our ancestors, we will come to better understand ourselves. The new DNA research opens up vistas that are tremendously exciting.
In the past, the capabilities of Neanderthals have not been properly understood. This book begins to set the record straight.
The author narrates her audiobook. She speaks at a good, steady pace. At times I had to rewind because I I had difficulty distinguishing some words. The narration I have given three stars. I do wish there had been a PDF with maps.
*
* 4 stars by
* 4 stars by
Covid-19 article:
May 21, 2023
I found this to be an intensely interesting non fiction about neanderthals. Every page had some new, fascinating and exciting fact about them, their life and the ever going process to learn more about them. But I had to take a few breaks as it was a lot of information to process.
June 17, 2021
Happily, Neanderthals for some time now are in the process of rehabilitation: the stocky, brutal and somewhat dumb-looking physical reconstructions of the 19th and early 20th centuries have been banished for good. In its place we now see a human species that dealt inventively with nature and technology, covered a very wide geographic area, and above all survived hundreds of thousands of years, while the climate constantly alternated between super cold and very warm. Rebecca Wragg Sykes reconstructs the life of the Neanderthal in all its facets, based on precise archaeological finds and on reasonbale assumptions, and thereby challenging a lot of certainties held on to date. But above all, this is a plea to appreciate this cousin of Homo Sapiens to its full value. This is definitely a book worth reading and well upholstered. But at times the author tends to be a bit too detailed and technical. And, in general, her plea for a complete rehabilitation of the Neanderthal - to my taste - is a bit too much based on conjectures and assumptions, because there still is so much we aren't sure about. See my review about this in my History account on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ: /review/show...
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October 22, 2024Rebecca Wragg Sykes is a relatively young British archaeologist, affiliated with the universities of Liverpool and Bordeaux, and absolutely obsessed with the Neanderthal phenomenon. This book digs deep and exposes just about every aspect of this cousin of Homo sapiens. Wragg Sykes does this thoroughly, sometimes on the verge of being readable to a layman.
In the past year I have read numerous studies on prehistoric times, and the Neanderthals were of course regularly discussed. But archeology is a science that is constantly evolving and it appears that a number of theorems about the Neanderthal that were valid only 10-20 years ago are now outdated: the much larger brain capacity of the Neanderthal, for example (based on only a few finds of Neanderthal men and not at all representative), their presumed belief in the afterlife (based on floral remains in the Shanidar cave in Iraq, which now appear to have blown in), the myth of the very last Neanderthals on the Rock of Gibraltar (it’s more plausible in Central-Asia), etc.
Rebecca Wragg Sykes is fully committed to adjusting the view that only Homo sapiens made a cognitive evolution or leap that enabled them to perform symbolic behavior and develop spectacular art (with the cave paintings as the highlight). Wragg Sykes shows abundantly that the Neanderthals also underwent quite a development and that numerous discoveries indicate that this human species was also capable of a lot, both cognitively and intellectually. “More than anything, Neanderthals were survivors and explorers, pioneering new ways to be human, expanding themselves through space and even in time. They experimented with new ways to fragment, accumulate and even metamorphose material substances. Long-burning aesthetic embers and bright eruptions of symbolic engagements are there in collecting special objects, marking things and places, exploring what it meant to be dead.�
I admit that after reading this book I indeed had to adjust my image of the more "primitive", - read "inferior" -, species that lost out to our sapiens kind, due to a lack of adaptive capacity or less cognitive aptitudes. Wragg Sykes convincingly shows that the Neanderthal should be appreciated more because of its successes. But I have the impression that in her zeal for the rehabilitation of the Neanderthal, she is very much going in the other direction, using speculative reasonings. Her overview of the material and emotional life of Neanderthal is filled with conjectures, probabilities, and analogies. And that’s understable: despite the fact that in comparison with other hominids there are quite a lot of archaeological finds of Neanderthals, we turn out to have the remains of only about 40 individuals, spread over several hundreds of thousands of years and an area ranging from the Iberian Peninsula to the Altai Mountains in Siberia. With all due respect, but that's still very little to go on.
Anyway, discoveries keep popping up all the time, and with the new paleogenetics archeology seems well on its way to getting a fuller picture of the Neanderthals (and other hominids). And they certainly deserve more appreciation. But it would be wrong to assume that their physical, technical, and cognitive abilities were more or less the same as the sapiens, as Wragg Sykes seems to suggest. After all, the rather sudden disappearance of the Neanderthal, around 40,000 years ago, still remains a fact that cannot be adequately explained, not even by the author of this book.
In the past year I have read numerous studies on prehistoric times, and the Neanderthals were of course regularly discussed. But archeology is a science that is constantly evolving and it appears that a number of theorems about the Neanderthal that were valid only 10-20 years ago are now outdated: the much larger brain capacity of the Neanderthal, for example (based on only a few finds of Neanderthal men and not at all representative), their presumed belief in the afterlife (based on floral remains in the Shanidar cave in Iraq, which now appear to have blown in), the myth of the very last Neanderthals on the Rock of Gibraltar (it’s more plausible in Central-Asia), etc.
Rebecca Wragg Sykes is fully committed to adjusting the view that only Homo sapiens made a cognitive evolution or leap that enabled them to perform symbolic behavior and develop spectacular art (with the cave paintings as the highlight). Wragg Sykes shows abundantly that the Neanderthals also underwent quite a development and that numerous discoveries indicate that this human species was also capable of a lot, both cognitively and intellectually. “More than anything, Neanderthals were survivors and explorers, pioneering new ways to be human, expanding themselves through space and even in time. They experimented with new ways to fragment, accumulate and even metamorphose material substances. Long-burning aesthetic embers and bright eruptions of symbolic engagements are there in collecting special objects, marking things and places, exploring what it meant to be dead.�
I admit that after reading this book I indeed had to adjust my image of the more "primitive", - read "inferior" -, species that lost out to our sapiens kind, due to a lack of adaptive capacity or less cognitive aptitudes. Wragg Sykes convincingly shows that the Neanderthal should be appreciated more because of its successes. But I have the impression that in her zeal for the rehabilitation of the Neanderthal, she is very much going in the other direction, using speculative reasonings. Her overview of the material and emotional life of Neanderthal is filled with conjectures, probabilities, and analogies. And that’s understable: despite the fact that in comparison with other hominids there are quite a lot of archaeological finds of Neanderthals, we turn out to have the remains of only about 40 individuals, spread over several hundreds of thousands of years and an area ranging from the Iberian Peninsula to the Altai Mountains in Siberia. With all due respect, but that's still very little to go on.
Anyway, discoveries keep popping up all the time, and with the new paleogenetics archeology seems well on its way to getting a fuller picture of the Neanderthals (and other hominids). And they certainly deserve more appreciation. But it would be wrong to assume that their physical, technical, and cognitive abilities were more or less the same as the sapiens, as Wragg Sykes seems to suggest. After all, the rather sudden disappearance of the Neanderthal, around 40,000 years ago, still remains a fact that cannot be adequately explained, not even by the author of this book.
September 23, 2022
Author Sykes is a paleantologist-turned-science-writer, and she tried, she really did, to make the subject matter accessible. She knows her science. Her ability to connect to readers? Not quite so much.
If this is your first foray into the world of the Neanderthals, you should probably start somewhere else. This is more of a data-rich resource for serious students of the paleo world, people who are deeply interested in the implications of the single-edged Mooriarian hand axes from 80,000 years ago vs the double-edged Kharavian axes that appeared 20,000 years later. People who are interested in the techniques used to determine the age of little flakes of burned horse femur. Such people exist, and may they be blessed in their work, as bit by bit, tooth by tooth, they extend our knowledge of a world that can no longer be seen directly.
But what many beginners want to know is: What did they eat? How did they get it? Could they talk, and actually converse in the sense we understand it? Did they go to war and murder each other? And most importantly, did they bang our great-great-infinitum-grandma?
Each of these questions is discussed at length. (And yes, unless you and your ancestors are all from sub-Saharan Africa, you are carrying Neandertal genes in you.) So the mediocre rating I am supplying comes not from the quantity or veracity of the information supplied, but rather the style in which it was delivered.
We seem to be witnessing the first graceless steps in Sykes' transformation from scientist to science writer. She has grasped that the reading public doesn't merely want logical arguments buttressed by heavily-referenced field observations, but instead wants a story they can relate to. She has organized her book around specific aspects of their culture -- their food, their weapons, their art forms -- and begins each chapter with a couple of pages of 'poetic' writing, all in italics. This is followed by thirty or forty pages of logical arguments buttressed by heavily-referenced field observations.
The book suffers in comparison to The Neanderthal Enigma, by James Shreeve, which is quite simply the book you should read first, if you can get your hands on a copy. Compare twenty pages of descriptions of different chipping methods used at different campsites to make hide scrapers (Sykes) vs. hanging out with a guy who has relearned the art of making handaxes, whom Shreeve hangs out with over a beer or two. Sykes tells you what's there; Shreeve gives you a sense of how the Neanderthals actually spent their days.
If this is your first foray into the world of the Neanderthals, you should probably start somewhere else. This is more of a data-rich resource for serious students of the paleo world, people who are deeply interested in the implications of the single-edged Mooriarian hand axes from 80,000 years ago vs the double-edged Kharavian axes that appeared 20,000 years later. People who are interested in the techniques used to determine the age of little flakes of burned horse femur. Such people exist, and may they be blessed in their work, as bit by bit, tooth by tooth, they extend our knowledge of a world that can no longer be seen directly.
But what many beginners want to know is: What did they eat? How did they get it? Could they talk, and actually converse in the sense we understand it? Did they go to war and murder each other? And most importantly, did they bang our great-great-infinitum-grandma?
Each of these questions is discussed at length. (And yes, unless you and your ancestors are all from sub-Saharan Africa, you are carrying Neandertal genes in you.) So the mediocre rating I am supplying comes not from the quantity or veracity of the information supplied, but rather the style in which it was delivered.
We seem to be witnessing the first graceless steps in Sykes' transformation from scientist to science writer. She has grasped that the reading public doesn't merely want logical arguments buttressed by heavily-referenced field observations, but instead wants a story they can relate to. She has organized her book around specific aspects of their culture -- their food, their weapons, their art forms -- and begins each chapter with a couple of pages of 'poetic' writing, all in italics. This is followed by thirty or forty pages of logical arguments buttressed by heavily-referenced field observations.
The book suffers in comparison to The Neanderthal Enigma, by James Shreeve, which is quite simply the book you should read first, if you can get your hands on a copy. Compare twenty pages of descriptions of different chipping methods used at different campsites to make hide scrapers (Sykes) vs. hanging out with a guy who has relearned the art of making handaxes, whom Shreeve hangs out with over a beer or two. Sykes tells you what's there; Shreeve gives you a sense of how the Neanderthals actually spent their days.
July 12, 2020
Look through shadows, listen beyond echoes; they have much to tell. Not only of other ways to be human, but new eyes to see ourselves. The most glorious thing about the Neanderthals is that they belong to all of us, and they're no dead-end, past-tense phenomenon. They are right here. In my hands typing and your brain understanding my words. Read on, and meet your kindred.
According to her own , Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes is an archaeologist, writer and “creative professionalâ€�, with an especial interest in theÌýancient world of the Palaeolithic, and whose doctoral thesis was the first synthesis of evidence for late Neanderthals in Britain. With such impressive credentials, stated interests in creative writing and the highlighting of women in earth sciences, it's not a surprise that I found to be such an impressive read; Wragg Sykes not only relates the entire history of Neanderthal research, but in engaging prose, she explains why the story of these hominid cousins should matter to us humans today. I loved all of this, beginning to end. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
Amid ancient surfaces densely spangled by myriad artefacts, fireplaces are like archaeological wormholes, bridging the impossible chasms of time separating us from long-vanished dwellers. As researchers encircle hearths, excavating, their presence is like an afterglow of human attention, reanimating empty spaces. Time collapses, and it's almost as if our fingers reaching out might graze the warmth of Neaderthal skin, sitting right there beside us.
Wragg Sykes shares how evolving scientific techniques have enabled archaeologists to learn an incredible amount about Neanderthal customs and culture, and while my eyes sometimes glazed over with all of the information about flakes and discoids and bifaces, knapped here and carried there � astounding toolmaking evidence that nonetheless became a bit repetitive to this lay reader � I was truly blown away by the microscopic and atomic research that can not only show where, say from a single tooth, a Neanderthal child was born and moved throughout her days, but through the examination of minuscule growth patterns, which were seasons of want or plenty in that shortened life. It all made me think about how much information has been lost over the years because of archaeologists excavating sites before they had the technology to properly preserve the integrity of those sites (which then made me wonder what mistakes future scientists will accuse our generation of making), but I was fascinated by the idea that currently, sites are 3D-mapped by lasers before digging begins and archaeologists have been able to retrieve millions of Neanderthal artefacts from the “rubbish heaps� left behind by those Victorian Age pioneers who sought only bone and obvious tools.
While minds create things, things also create minds in a manner that extends far beyond the individual or even the generation, and can transform whole species. For Neanderthals, new experience or encounters opened up fresh ways of thinking about the world. It's not a stretch to suggest that their technological innovations probably impacted other aspects of their lives. Composite tools are a case in point; the inherent process of joining together must have reinforced concepts of connectedness and collaboration, crucial for hunting and social networks. And since composite tools are made up of materials connecting different places and times, these objects had a unique capacity to act as potent mnemonics, expanding the vistas of memory and imagination.
I also appreciate how Wragg Sykes attempts to revive the Neanderthal mind � with a culture and anatomy much like those of early Homo sapiens (including a brain slightly larger, if differently shaped, than ours), these were no knuckle-dragging brutes; there is evidence that they made art, ornaments, shared their food communally, and participated in funerary practises. There is also no doubt that Neanderthals and early humans interbred (all people except those of Sub-Saharan lineage have Neanderthal DNA) and Wragg Sykes writes that's there's no reason to believe these weren't the couplings of fellow humans who recognised each other as related beings.
By 20,000 years ago, we were alone on the surface of this planet. Nonetheless, the Neanderthals still lived, after a fashion. Even as our encounters fell out of all memory, our blood and our babies still contain the fruits of interactions with the universe's other experiments in being human. Bones and stones long waited underground for us to rediscover our shared future. And when we finally did, everything changed.
Wragg Sykes makes a compelling case for embracing Neanderthals into the human family � not only because “othering� has led to the worst of the ways we humans have treated each other throughout history, but because of some disturbing experiments being done today with Neanderthal DNA: putting the DNA into frogs to try and discover Neanderthals' pain response; putting the DNA into humanoid robots; there's no reason to believe these aren't the first steps on the road to Unfrozen Caveman Lawyers, and is all of this in keeping with the dignity and respect that we purport to reserve for our fellow humans?
From the Victorian spelunkers whose discoveries shook their cosy worldviews to the precision data revealed in modern laboratories, the history of Neanderthal research is a fascinating one; and with evocative and empathetic storytelling, Wragg Sykes reanimates these long-forgotten ancestors. Kindred is an engrossing story, told well.
February 3, 2023
23 in '23 #1
Dense and exhaustive, this book is like a fat Thanksgiving turkey that baked slightly too long: appealing, filling, but just too dry. Case it point, it took me more than a year to get through this one, and I've been slightly obsessed with Neanderthals since I was a kid. I see myself returning to reread a few chapters again and perhaps again, but the rest I will likely never revisit, such as the chapter on lithic techno-complexes.
Dense and exhaustive, this book is like a fat Thanksgiving turkey that baked slightly too long: appealing, filling, but just too dry. Case it point, it took me more than a year to get through this one, and I've been slightly obsessed with Neanderthals since I was a kid. I see myself returning to reread a few chapters again and perhaps again, but the rest I will likely never revisit, such as the chapter on lithic techno-complexes.
March 27, 2025
(2.3) so I made myself a promise I wasn’t going to read any more anthro/archaeological books…the hypotheticals are just far too ludicrous.
Kindred is more of the same; trying to determine what happened in a French cave 70,000 years ago from a few bones, some fossilized possible widgets and laser analysis of soot levels is more proof of homo sapien imagination than anything else.
The author’s a fan girl for the Neanderthal, which is understandable since you’d be hard pressed to hate something you study…so Neanderthals are a little shorter, thicker, stronger, maybe less agile. Their societies were probably smaller than sapiens but still they made tools, processed and butchered prey and seemed to have some kind of stable community structure…sapiens seem way more represented in burial rituals…hmm
Otherwise, the evidence for Neanderthals still depends on a few hundred skeletons which does nothing to tell us why our cousins died out 40,000 years ago.
I had read this bc I had a pet theory that the differences in IQ between European, Asian, and African groups might be explained by Neanderthal DNA…between 1-4% of homo sapien DNA is Neanderthal…but not of Africans…however original Americans have similar bits of Neanderthal and their IQs are noticeably lower…so my theory seems muddled at best. Perhaps the combination of the colder climate and the Neanderthal DNA was enough of a spark to set the modern world in motion some 3,000 year ago…unlocking dNA will certainly be integral.
Kindred is more of the same; trying to determine what happened in a French cave 70,000 years ago from a few bones, some fossilized possible widgets and laser analysis of soot levels is more proof of homo sapien imagination than anything else.
The author’s a fan girl for the Neanderthal, which is understandable since you’d be hard pressed to hate something you study…so Neanderthals are a little shorter, thicker, stronger, maybe less agile. Their societies were probably smaller than sapiens but still they made tools, processed and butchered prey and seemed to have some kind of stable community structure…sapiens seem way more represented in burial rituals…hmm
Otherwise, the evidence for Neanderthals still depends on a few hundred skeletons which does nothing to tell us why our cousins died out 40,000 years ago.
I had read this bc I had a pet theory that the differences in IQ between European, Asian, and African groups might be explained by Neanderthal DNA…between 1-4% of homo sapien DNA is Neanderthal…but not of Africans…however original Americans have similar bits of Neanderthal and their IQs are noticeably lower…so my theory seems muddled at best. Perhaps the combination of the colder climate and the Neanderthal DNA was enough of a spark to set the modern world in motion some 3,000 year ago…unlocking dNA will certainly be integral.
September 15, 2021
Dr. Sykes has written an enthralling book about our distant cousins, who it turns out were more like us than we might think. Firstly, Rebecca Wragg Sykes writes like an angel. Each chapter has a short introductory elegiac reflection on the information which follows, and these are written with the skill of a poet. These pieces make the book a joy to read. And then there is the text itself: the amount of detail amassed by the scientists who investigate these ancient relatives of ours is just astounding. Dr. Sykes describes the research and methods used to analyze the sites where Neanderthal remains are found, and why each tiny scrap (literally) can be important. For instance, did you know that these Neanderthal cousins of ours probably picked their teeth with tiny sticks? Or that the calculus on their teeth can show us what kinds of food they ate? All of this information is now available to be studied thoroughly because of new computer technology and better tools.
Everything found at the many sites around the world can be important. Obviously, Neanderthals were able to travel long distances, and did so. They also made tools of varying complexity, and used fire to cook their food. The kinds of tools they made are described in great detail; this is relevant because it shows a degree of thinking logically and a sense of organization and planning.
There is an enormous amount of speculation about the evidence for possible burial practices and the creation of symbolic objects. Of course, there exists proof of interbreeding between Neanderthals and H. sapiens which has ignited even more research. And questions. Neanderthals were definitively gone by 40,000 years ago. The question is why? There are many possible answers to this vexing question: too rapid changes in climate; changes in food supply; competition and overcrowding from other hominins; even a possible pandemic unknown to us now which might have adversely affected them but not others. Perhaps the answer is all of the above.
As an interested reader, my own feeling is that H. sapiens benefited from some slight genetic differences which enabled them to cooperate on a larger scale in greater numbers and over vaster distances than their competitors. The question of the evolution of language is not touched on very much in Dr. Sykes� book, but she does discuss the possibilities of the use of verbal communication. With the slight change in genomic structure in the brains of H. sapiens, which she discusses, it is possible that this gave our lineage a leg up. Considering that language became ubiquitous in humans only about 40,000 years ago, a mere blink of the eye in evolutionary terms, it seems an important advantage which enabled us, for better or worse, to colonize the entire globe. But, it should be emphasized, that our lineage did not "beat" the Neanderthals, we likely out-cooperated and out-competed them.
In the final chapter of her book, Dr. Sykes writes beautifully and movingly about the need for science in society at large, and the unbiased examination of human origins.
"Yet the Neanderthals were never some sort of highway service station en route to Real People. They were state-of-the-art humans, just of a different sort. Their fate was a tapestry woven from the lives of individual hybrid babies, entire assimilated groups, and in remoter corners of Eurasia, lonely dwindling lineages - endlings - who left nothing behind but DNA sifting slowly down into the dirt of a cave floor."
And, just to make things even more interesting, Dr. Sykes has a wicked sense of humor.
There are many more aspects to this book that I could discuss; all that makes it one of the best books I've read this year. In the end, we must realize that Neanderthals were our Kindred, the title of this spectacularly beautiful book.
Everything found at the many sites around the world can be important. Obviously, Neanderthals were able to travel long distances, and did so. They also made tools of varying complexity, and used fire to cook their food. The kinds of tools they made are described in great detail; this is relevant because it shows a degree of thinking logically and a sense of organization and planning.
There is an enormous amount of speculation about the evidence for possible burial practices and the creation of symbolic objects. Of course, there exists proof of interbreeding between Neanderthals and H. sapiens which has ignited even more research. And questions. Neanderthals were definitively gone by 40,000 years ago. The question is why? There are many possible answers to this vexing question: too rapid changes in climate; changes in food supply; competition and overcrowding from other hominins; even a possible pandemic unknown to us now which might have adversely affected them but not others. Perhaps the answer is all of the above.
As an interested reader, my own feeling is that H. sapiens benefited from some slight genetic differences which enabled them to cooperate on a larger scale in greater numbers and over vaster distances than their competitors. The question of the evolution of language is not touched on very much in Dr. Sykes� book, but she does discuss the possibilities of the use of verbal communication. With the slight change in genomic structure in the brains of H. sapiens, which she discusses, it is possible that this gave our lineage a leg up. Considering that language became ubiquitous in humans only about 40,000 years ago, a mere blink of the eye in evolutionary terms, it seems an important advantage which enabled us, for better or worse, to colonize the entire globe. But, it should be emphasized, that our lineage did not "beat" the Neanderthals, we likely out-cooperated and out-competed them.
In the final chapter of her book, Dr. Sykes writes beautifully and movingly about the need for science in society at large, and the unbiased examination of human origins.
"Yet the Neanderthals were never some sort of highway service station en route to Real People. They were state-of-the-art humans, just of a different sort. Their fate was a tapestry woven from the lives of individual hybrid babies, entire assimilated groups, and in remoter corners of Eurasia, lonely dwindling lineages - endlings - who left nothing behind but DNA sifting slowly down into the dirt of a cave floor."
And, just to make things even more interesting, Dr. Sykes has a wicked sense of humor.
There are many more aspects to this book that I could discuss; all that makes it one of the best books I've read this year. In the end, we must realize that Neanderthals were our Kindred, the title of this spectacularly beautiful book.
May 3, 2021
2.5 stars
The information is good and the author obviously is an expert in the field, but I was so bored reading this. And that's despite narrative elements at the beginning of each chapter that make ancient peoples feel more relevant to us modern folks. By the time I got to the end I was purposefully skimming - reading the first sentence of each paragraph and glossing over the rest - and that was a superior way of processing and enjoying the information. Which is a shame.
More in-depth thoughts in my .
The information is good and the author obviously is an expert in the field, but I was so bored reading this. And that's despite narrative elements at the beginning of each chapter that make ancient peoples feel more relevant to us modern folks. By the time I got to the end I was purposefully skimming - reading the first sentence of each paragraph and glossing over the rest - and that was a superior way of processing and enjoying the information. Which is a shame.
More in-depth thoughts in my .
Shelved as '12-book-challenge'
January 12, 2023I didn't find this terribly interesting. Possibly because I wasn't invested in a narrative of Neanderthals as knuckle dragging cavemen in the first place, therefore I'm not invested in countering that narrative either. Heavily technical, lots on the detail of chipping stone, and rather dry except for the passages of purple prose and poetry (eeesh) at the start of each chapter.
TBH though, I noped out on in chapter one, and was a near death experience, so it's possible I simply don't find prehistory interesting and should stop reading about it. You can't be interested in everything. Or I can't be, anyway.
Read as part of the 12 book challenge which is not going so well this year, hey ho.
TBH though, I noped out on in chapter one, and was a near death experience, so it's possible I simply don't find prehistory interesting and should stop reading about it. You can't be interested in everything. Or I can't be, anyway.
Read as part of the 12 book challenge which is not going so well this year, hey ho.
October 31, 2020
Sykes combined elegiacal prose with ecstatic reverence, as she explores, unearths and allows us to discover everything about Neanderthals, from their social structures, to their toolmaking capabilities and how the reared their children, the panoply of Neanderthal life is capture within the pages of ‘Kindred�.
Inevitably, given the sheer variety of topics Sykes explores, some readers will be more interested in certain aspects of Neanderthal life than others and whilst I found the detailed descriptions of their toolmaking slightly dry, what was far more interesting was her exploration of their culture and social structures, from their potential rituals around burying their dead, to the likelihood of them cannibalising loved ones they had lost as a mark of remembrance or of the social dynamics which existed as hunter gatherers, much of which echoes the dynamics of human hunter gatherer societies. Indeed a common thread which runs through ‘Kindred� is that Neanderthals are often given a bad rep for being brutish, stupid and violent when they were anything but and many of their behaviours closely resembles humans. Sykes is keen on us seeing the world from outside the lens of egocentricity, but instead wants our perspective to shift to a more symbiotic one, where we see ourselves as being the small part of a greater whole and just another spoke in the wheel of life within which we have existed for such a short space of time.
Like all great scientists, Sykes sees the all of the uncertainty she has to work through as a chance to provide potential answers rather than as wading through the mud and this comes out in the sheer excitement Sykes demonstrates throughout the book as she takes the reader on an unforgettable journey into the lives of our long-lost relatives
Inevitably, given the sheer variety of topics Sykes explores, some readers will be more interested in certain aspects of Neanderthal life than others and whilst I found the detailed descriptions of their toolmaking slightly dry, what was far more interesting was her exploration of their culture and social structures, from their potential rituals around burying their dead, to the likelihood of them cannibalising loved ones they had lost as a mark of remembrance or of the social dynamics which existed as hunter gatherers, much of which echoes the dynamics of human hunter gatherer societies. Indeed a common thread which runs through ‘Kindred� is that Neanderthals are often given a bad rep for being brutish, stupid and violent when they were anything but and many of their behaviours closely resembles humans. Sykes is keen on us seeing the world from outside the lens of egocentricity, but instead wants our perspective to shift to a more symbiotic one, where we see ourselves as being the small part of a greater whole and just another spoke in the wheel of life within which we have existed for such a short space of time.
Like all great scientists, Sykes sees the all of the uncertainty she has to work through as a chance to provide potential answers rather than as wading through the mud and this comes out in the sheer excitement Sykes demonstrates throughout the book as she takes the reader on an unforgettable journey into the lives of our long-lost relatives
November 7, 2023
This is an interesting and comprehensive overview of everything that we know about Neanderthals to date - how they lived, where they lived, what they ate, and how they possibly dealt with love and death.Ìý The book is probably too detailed and a bit dry for someone just looking for a brief summary, but the extra details is what appealed to me.Ìý I did, however, wish for more illustrations, photographs and maps etc.
November 24, 2023
Here it is, folks! Everything you could possibly know about Neanderthals as of 2020. And it's surprisingly a lot. Most of our received knowledge is out-of-date or simply wrong, so it's worth getting up to speed with Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art. Rebecca Wragg Sykes, an archaeologist who specializes in precisely this topic, has amassed a stunning amount of data about our hominin relatives (upright walking hominids): where they lived, how they lived, how they fit into the timeline of evolution and history, and to what extent they interacted with Homo sapiens. And, just to clear this up before proceeding (though I don't think it's ever addressed in the book): the modern pronunciation is nee-AN-dur-tall with a hard "T" rather than a "Th" sound.*
Part of the book's wonder is what it reveals about modern archaeological methods. So much can be gleaned not just from bones and artifacts, but also from the subtlest observation of positioning, layering, barely visible scuff marks, surrounding soil, chemical analysis, 3D scans, and even DNA. That's right! DNA has been obtained from and analyzed for nearly 40 individuals. This is mind-blowing, but also explains how 23andMe can confidently say the Neanderthal genome accounts for just under 2% of my own genetic information. It might be easy to think there are only a handful of fossils available (true for the more mysterious Denisovans), but there are hundreds of specimens in various states of preservation. Sykes maps out the locations where remains have been found: mostly focused in Spain and the Iberian Peninsula, France, and Germany, but also in Italy and as far east as Siberia.
Neanderthals lived for over 300,000 years; far longer than anatomically modern Homo sapiens has been around. The last of them lived roughly 40,000 years ago, which means our closely related species overlapped considerably. And yes, they intermingled (if you get my drift): at a minimum of 3 points in history, but as many as 6. We may picture them miserable, cold, huddling in caves and on the brink of death, but their long history includes long periods of warmth, open spaces, and strength in numbers as well.
The work of untangling the clues we have is daunting. Sykes lets us in on the reasoning behind various conclusions and continuing mysteries, and as a scientist she's careful to set parameters about what we can know, and what can only be guessed at based on the evidence. A single cave (indeed, there was plenty of cave-dwelling, and caves are good places to preserve things) might have been home to generations' worth of Neanderthal families, followed by habitation by animals for tens of thousands of years, and then have human remains layered on top. Those remains may be located within inches or feet of each other. Sykes is intimately familiar with each case, and discusses items that were buried with their owners, or perhaps only appear to be buried with them based on clues found in layering, soil composition, pollen analysis, mass spectrometry, temperature shifts, tampering, simple logic, various dating methods, or any number of taphonomic considerations (yeah, that term for the study of fossilization was new to me, too). The real tragic stories are of sites discovered 40+ years ago, as so much evidence that could be analyzed now has been removed by previous archaeologists. Oftentimes the original diagrams or photos have been lost, or fossils have been damaged in transit.
Neanderthals were certainly intelligent, and manipulated their environments. We know they worked with stone, bone, leather and wood, and can venture that their crafting extended to more perishable media as well. One cave in France preserves the breaking and reorganizing of two tons of stalagmites, showing an example of Neanderthal architecture at a time (174,000 years ago) in which only Neanderthals were there to do it. A Neanderthal finger print is preserved in birch pitch! There are hand prints and foot prints! I knew none of this. I'll warn you in advance that there's a chapter devoted to the chipping (ahem, knapping) of various hand tools and hunting implements, and it's a bit much. I'm not sure even I needed that level of detail about flakes, bifaces, levallois, quina, discoids and laminars. Whether Neanderthals created art has always been an alluring question. There are tantalizing clues, and Sykes examines each in turn, allowing that a series of regular notch marks could be expressive, or functional. A piece of pumice or shiny quartz may have been collected because it was beautiful, or maybe just because it was unusual.
Sykes wants to humanize Neanderthals, but follows the data where it leads. She has to break the sad news that we can't confidently picture Neanderthals burying their dead with flowers: that popular conception came from pollen evidence that could have been deposited by other means. However, she can point to cases in which the intent to preserve bodies is clear, or possessions or animal bones were buried alongside them. There's a thorough investigation of what looks to be ritual cannibalism, and she draws parallels to human societies in which the practice been seen as more of a death rite than a form of defacement or sustenance.
On occasion, we are treated to poetic reflections, allowing us a reprieve to use our imaginations and picture the Neanderthal experience. It's a nice moment to relish a day in the life before returning to the analytical underpinnings of those images. The overall level of detail in this book may be too much for the casual reader, and I might not recommend it to someone just venturing into the world of science non-fiction. However, for those wanting to know more about our geologically recent tip of the branch of life, it's a meticulous and valuable resource. With all that has been learned just in the decade preceding the publication of this book, I'd be very much interested in a future update accounting for new findings.
*Sykes didn't talk about the pronunciation of the word (though you can hear her use it in ), but she did point out that the original Neander location, where the first recognized remain was found in 1856, was named after Joachim Neander, who died in 1680. His grandfather had changed their last name from Neumann. Both names mean "new man". Fitting, right? And "Tal" means "valley" in German.
Part of the book's wonder is what it reveals about modern archaeological methods. So much can be gleaned not just from bones and artifacts, but also from the subtlest observation of positioning, layering, barely visible scuff marks, surrounding soil, chemical analysis, 3D scans, and even DNA. That's right! DNA has been obtained from and analyzed for nearly 40 individuals. This is mind-blowing, but also explains how 23andMe can confidently say the Neanderthal genome accounts for just under 2% of my own genetic information. It might be easy to think there are only a handful of fossils available (true for the more mysterious Denisovans), but there are hundreds of specimens in various states of preservation. Sykes maps out the locations where remains have been found: mostly focused in Spain and the Iberian Peninsula, France, and Germany, but also in Italy and as far east as Siberia.
Neanderthals lived for over 300,000 years; far longer than anatomically modern Homo sapiens has been around. The last of them lived roughly 40,000 years ago, which means our closely related species overlapped considerably. And yes, they intermingled (if you get my drift): at a minimum of 3 points in history, but as many as 6. We may picture them miserable, cold, huddling in caves and on the brink of death, but their long history includes long periods of warmth, open spaces, and strength in numbers as well.
The work of untangling the clues we have is daunting. Sykes lets us in on the reasoning behind various conclusions and continuing mysteries, and as a scientist she's careful to set parameters about what we can know, and what can only be guessed at based on the evidence. A single cave (indeed, there was plenty of cave-dwelling, and caves are good places to preserve things) might have been home to generations' worth of Neanderthal families, followed by habitation by animals for tens of thousands of years, and then have human remains layered on top. Those remains may be located within inches or feet of each other. Sykes is intimately familiar with each case, and discusses items that were buried with their owners, or perhaps only appear to be buried with them based on clues found in layering, soil composition, pollen analysis, mass spectrometry, temperature shifts, tampering, simple logic, various dating methods, or any number of taphonomic considerations (yeah, that term for the study of fossilization was new to me, too). The real tragic stories are of sites discovered 40+ years ago, as so much evidence that could be analyzed now has been removed by previous archaeologists. Oftentimes the original diagrams or photos have been lost, or fossils have been damaged in transit.
Neanderthals were certainly intelligent, and manipulated their environments. We know they worked with stone, bone, leather and wood, and can venture that their crafting extended to more perishable media as well. One cave in France preserves the breaking and reorganizing of two tons of stalagmites, showing an example of Neanderthal architecture at a time (174,000 years ago) in which only Neanderthals were there to do it. A Neanderthal finger print is preserved in birch pitch! There are hand prints and foot prints! I knew none of this. I'll warn you in advance that there's a chapter devoted to the chipping (ahem, knapping) of various hand tools and hunting implements, and it's a bit much. I'm not sure even I needed that level of detail about flakes, bifaces, levallois, quina, discoids and laminars. Whether Neanderthals created art has always been an alluring question. There are tantalizing clues, and Sykes examines each in turn, allowing that a series of regular notch marks could be expressive, or functional. A piece of pumice or shiny quartz may have been collected because it was beautiful, or maybe just because it was unusual.
Sykes wants to humanize Neanderthals, but follows the data where it leads. She has to break the sad news that we can't confidently picture Neanderthals burying their dead with flowers: that popular conception came from pollen evidence that could have been deposited by other means. However, she can point to cases in which the intent to preserve bodies is clear, or possessions or animal bones were buried alongside them. There's a thorough investigation of what looks to be ritual cannibalism, and she draws parallels to human societies in which the practice been seen as more of a death rite than a form of defacement or sustenance.
On occasion, we are treated to poetic reflections, allowing us a reprieve to use our imaginations and picture the Neanderthal experience. It's a nice moment to relish a day in the life before returning to the analytical underpinnings of those images. The overall level of detail in this book may be too much for the casual reader, and I might not recommend it to someone just venturing into the world of science non-fiction. However, for those wanting to know more about our geologically recent tip of the branch of life, it's a meticulous and valuable resource. With all that has been learned just in the decade preceding the publication of this book, I'd be very much interested in a future update accounting for new findings.
*Sykes didn't talk about the pronunciation of the word (though you can hear her use it in ), but she did point out that the original Neander location, where the first recognized remain was found in 1856, was named after Joachim Neander, who died in 1680. His grandfather had changed their last name from Neumann. Both names mean "new man". Fitting, right? And "Tal" means "valley" in German.
March 20, 2021
At first, I thought of rating this book at 4 stars, but after finishing it, I am sure that all the effort and achievements by Rebecca Wragg Skyes in writing it are worth each and every one of these stars.
The first Neanderthal bones were discovered around 1850 and from then on a series of misleading information took place, mostly on account of our human tendency to believe we are the chosen ones, therefore, there can be no others who come even close to us. Thus, for almost a whole century Neanderthals were believed to be more ape-like, not only in appearance but also in cognitive functions. Not long ago a north-american president called the people of a certain US state to have "neanderthal thinking".
In Kindred, we follow along the paths taken by this cousin species of humans, homo sapiens neanderthalensis, which evolved in Eurasia for hundreds of thousands of years, facing glacial and warmer weathers, developing quite sophisticated technology for those time being, and leading hunter-gatherer lives, which is to say they'd generally be moving around. Regardless of the lack of more traces left by Neanderthals, archeologists still can bring to life a rich assembly of the few items left behind located in sediment layers located in caves and when lucky enough, their bone remains. It is believed they vanished from the face of Earth around 40.000 to 28.000 years ago, when homo sapiens sapiens were already spreading around the whole globe.
Rebecca ends up demolishing the many myths concerning Neanderthals, even some scientific bias we still perpetrated on them, based on our western culture of racial superiority. The truth is that they are our kin. More than that, Neanderthals and homo sapiens interbred, thus, with the exception of sub-Saharan populations, the rest of the world has inherited 1.5 to 2.1 percent genetic material from them. Somehow they didn't go extinct after all but live inside each one of us.
Something that is not stated in the book, but was all the time in my mind is the fact that we are not, after all, any kind of chosen ones and I am not talking in religious terms. This is an excuse we use to dispose of every living creature as commodities to our own benefit, let alone all of the finite resources the planet Earth has to offer to any creature. This is no surprise that I keep saying that I still keep some kind of faith in humans, though I fear them as well.
The first Neanderthal bones were discovered around 1850 and from then on a series of misleading information took place, mostly on account of our human tendency to believe we are the chosen ones, therefore, there can be no others who come even close to us. Thus, for almost a whole century Neanderthals were believed to be more ape-like, not only in appearance but also in cognitive functions. Not long ago a north-american president called the people of a certain US state to have "neanderthal thinking".
In Kindred, we follow along the paths taken by this cousin species of humans, homo sapiens neanderthalensis, which evolved in Eurasia for hundreds of thousands of years, facing glacial and warmer weathers, developing quite sophisticated technology for those time being, and leading hunter-gatherer lives, which is to say they'd generally be moving around. Regardless of the lack of more traces left by Neanderthals, archeologists still can bring to life a rich assembly of the few items left behind located in sediment layers located in caves and when lucky enough, their bone remains. It is believed they vanished from the face of Earth around 40.000 to 28.000 years ago, when homo sapiens sapiens were already spreading around the whole globe.
Rebecca ends up demolishing the many myths concerning Neanderthals, even some scientific bias we still perpetrated on them, based on our western culture of racial superiority. The truth is that they are our kin. More than that, Neanderthals and homo sapiens interbred, thus, with the exception of sub-Saharan populations, the rest of the world has inherited 1.5 to 2.1 percent genetic material from them. Somehow they didn't go extinct after all but live inside each one of us.
Something that is not stated in the book, but was all the time in my mind is the fact that we are not, after all, any kind of chosen ones and I am not talking in religious terms. This is an excuse we use to dispose of every living creature as commodities to our own benefit, let alone all of the finite resources the planet Earth has to offer to any creature. This is no surprise that I keep saying that I still keep some kind of faith in humans, though I fear them as well.
September 25, 2020
Interesting but far too detailed
I found the book disappointing. Although the writing is conversational and in plain English, I felt that the information on archeological sites was too detailed and too extensive to keep my attention. On the other hand, I enjoyed the introduction to each paragraph, finding them poetic, but this wasn’t enough to make the book enjoyable.
Disclosure: I received an advance reader copy via Netgalley for review purposes.
I found the book disappointing. Although the writing is conversational and in plain English, I felt that the information on archeological sites was too detailed and too extensive to keep my attention. On the other hand, I enjoyed the introduction to each paragraph, finding them poetic, but this wasn’t enough to make the book enjoyable.
Disclosure: I received an advance reader copy via Netgalley for review purposes.
August 19, 2021
Neanderthal is a three hours drive from where I live, in the middle of the Ruhr District in Germany. Many years ago, we learnt in school that Homo neanderthalensis were brutes, so much less than our distant forefathers and rightfully extinguished.
The last 30 years came to different conclusions, and this wonderfully comprehensive book tells you all about it from early history in 19th century up to the cutting edge of research. Rebecca Sykes has a literary voice just at the right spot between academic and popular science. She’s hip-deep into research, building enough trust about her knowledge that one can let go any distrust and flow with her analysis.
The book is neither a short (shouldering 400 pages) nor an easy one, it still needs some concentration to read through the many facets of her research topic, like tools, clothes, communication, peregrinations, art, or innovations. The only aspect that I’d have liked to read more about are findings about Neanderthal language � but that’s just my linguistic curiosity which would lead me into heavily speculative terrain there.
Other than that, the book provides a holistic view about our Kindred. Because that’s what they are: Neanderthal contribute 2-4% of their genome to us modern humans. There are suggested links to helping with “digestive problems, urinary infections, diabetes, and over clotting of blood,� but also with adapting to lower levels of UV and seasonal winter darkness, and thermal efficiencies.
They were clever, technologically inventive and adaptable to changing environments over the course of more than 350,000 years through ice and warm ages, widely spread from Western Europe to central Asia.
I was impressed by the attention of detail researchers when they sieved through enormous amounts of tiny fractures to find out knapping waste pieces, puzzling them � helped by computers � to spearheads. Knapping is the one outstanding capability of Neanderthals, and it is analyzed in each and every detail � maybe a little bit too deep for my taste.
It still remains a mystery why the Neanderthal population died out. They were on eye level with Homo sapiens regarding intelligence and creativity. They’ve survived multiple climatic changes before. Was it competition for natural resources, or a disadvantage in social skills? After all, it might have been ill luck that they vanished.
Highly recommended for readers interested in our distant kindreds, the Neanderthals!
The last 30 years came to different conclusions, and this wonderfully comprehensive book tells you all about it from early history in 19th century up to the cutting edge of research. Rebecca Sykes has a literary voice just at the right spot between academic and popular science. She’s hip-deep into research, building enough trust about her knowledge that one can let go any distrust and flow with her analysis.
The book is neither a short (shouldering 400 pages) nor an easy one, it still needs some concentration to read through the many facets of her research topic, like tools, clothes, communication, peregrinations, art, or innovations. The only aspect that I’d have liked to read more about are findings about Neanderthal language � but that’s just my linguistic curiosity which would lead me into heavily speculative terrain there.
Other than that, the book provides a holistic view about our Kindred. Because that’s what they are: Neanderthal contribute 2-4% of their genome to us modern humans. There are suggested links to helping with “digestive problems, urinary infections, diabetes, and over clotting of blood,� but also with adapting to lower levels of UV and seasonal winter darkness, and thermal efficiencies.
They were clever, technologically inventive and adaptable to changing environments over the course of more than 350,000 years through ice and warm ages, widely spread from Western Europe to central Asia.
I was impressed by the attention of detail researchers when they sieved through enormous amounts of tiny fractures to find out knapping waste pieces, puzzling them � helped by computers � to spearheads. Knapping is the one outstanding capability of Neanderthals, and it is analyzed in each and every detail � maybe a little bit too deep for my taste.
It still remains a mystery why the Neanderthal population died out. They were on eye level with Homo sapiens regarding intelligence and creativity. They’ve survived multiple climatic changes before. Was it competition for natural resources, or a disadvantage in social skills? After all, it might have been ill luck that they vanished.
Highly recommended for readers interested in our distant kindreds, the Neanderthals!
December 24, 2021
While the contents of this book are absolutely amazing, I found the way it's presented a little bit dry. As I understand it, this is not a book for scientists - this is a book for laymen, so that material on Neanderthals can be more open to the public and presented in an easier to understand manner, as opposed to reading scientific papers which may be quite inaccessible in content to those who do not have the necessary background. And yet, the book is, well... quite boring and technical. I've read many books on things that could be presented as boring, and yet they were thrilling to read and didn't fail to capture and keep your attention. But not this one - this reads as your history textbook in school. That was also quite okay (although a bit of a disappointment), but I also found that the author often forgot that we're just laypeople. A lot of the terms are not explained and you have to Google them all the time. Why would the author assume everyone knows that calculus apparently means the stuff that's stuck on someone's teeth? Why not explain that? There's footnotes for things that are not really important, but there's no footnote on that? It would have made reading this so much simpler.
I liked the book, but ultimately the accessibility could have been better. That was quite disappointing. And yet, since it's so rare to find books geared for laypeople on this topic, I'm still glad it exists and that I read it - and it's definitely worth a read.
I liked the book, but ultimately the accessibility could have been better. That was quite disappointing. And yet, since it's so rare to find books geared for laypeople on this topic, I'm still glad it exists and that I read it - and it's definitely worth a read.
April 20, 2022
I have long shared a fascination with early humans with my son, and will definitely be buying him a copy of this book for his when-my-kids-are-a-bit-bigger-and-I-can-read-again shelf!
It's a wonderful read, and since Bevan on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ has written such an excellent review I don't really feel the need to enlarge on that, except to add that my suggestion for companion reads would be The Inheritors by William Golding and Stig of the Dump by Clive King!
Thank you to Ms Wragg Sykes for what must clearly have been a truly monumental piece of work, and also for introducing me to Samuel Celestine Edwards - who I see lived in Hackney (0ne of my former homes) for some time. I hope to read further of him.
Thank you too for her comment in her winding-up chapter:
'... With this in mind, biological experimentation splicing Neanderthal genes into mice has already begun, while 'Neanderthalised' frogs have been studied to determine if they experience pain differently. But we must ask whether causing suffering in sentient creatures for the purpose of human origins research is appropriate.'
We definitely must. Personally I don't think it is.
It's a wonderful read, and since Bevan on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ has written such an excellent review I don't really feel the need to enlarge on that, except to add that my suggestion for companion reads would be The Inheritors by William Golding and Stig of the Dump by Clive King!
Thank you to Ms Wragg Sykes for what must clearly have been a truly monumental piece of work, and also for introducing me to Samuel Celestine Edwards - who I see lived in Hackney (0ne of my former homes) for some time. I hope to read further of him.
Thank you too for her comment in her winding-up chapter:
'... With this in mind, biological experimentation splicing Neanderthal genes into mice has already begun, while 'Neanderthalised' frogs have been studied to determine if they experience pain differently. But we must ask whether causing suffering in sentient creatures for the purpose of human origins research is appropriate.'
We definitely must. Personally I don't think it is.
December 17, 2023
Probably the most comprehensive and up-to-date book out on Neanderthals. While the material can occasionally be dry, Sykes does a good job on the whole of injecting energy into the account of DNA, death rites, and bone cutting. There has to be some speculation in such a survey, but it's based on science and on habits of certain ape species. Recommended.
June 19, 2021
Gentle, insightful book on what we know about Neanderthals. We’ve learned quite a bit due to increased scientific ability to trace DNA and evaluate the remains and surroundings of Neanderthals. The author is gifted in telling the scientific research and what it indicates. Really enlightening.
August 18, 2023
DNFing at 30%. It's sad, because this was the oldest book on my TBR. I almost removed it several times, because I've read a few books this year in that same situation that I ended up loving...unfortunately, this is a pop science book through and through and I don't feel more enriched for reading it.
The more radical feminist bones in my body (paleontology joke??????) are resistant to writing a bad review for this, because the author apparently does a lot for women in natural science. Sisterhood, The Cause, so on and so forth. However, I have a mild headache this morning and am not inclined to lenience.
The first problem with this is that the title is misleading. "Life, Love, Death and Art" leads me to expect those topics will be the focus of the book, not minor features in a more general book about neanderthals. I made it 30% through the book and have yet to encounter even a whiff of either neanderthal art or love, and death and life are also sidelined in favor of talking about specific excavations, meta-analysis of neanderthal studies itself, and extremely technical details about particular neanderthal specimens. The closest the first third of this book comes to the more down to earth descriptions of neanderthal life its title promises is at the beginning of each chapter, which always features a poem or otherwise ~mellifluous~ piece of prose. These were so bad that they left my boyfriend in stitches when I read them aloud to him. Trying to be Sy Montgomery when you aren't Sy Montgomery will leave you sounding like a tryhard 7th grader in English class.
Poetry example:
Prose example:
Prose example 2:
CHILL IT WITH THE ADJECTIVES AND DESCRIBING VERBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The more "literary" approach suggested by both title and these brilliant pieces of poetry and prose was further confused by how jargony this book was. Strangely, Sykes alternated between extremely bad pop science and completely unfounded but exciting conclusions and being so rigorous in her factual accuracy that I found the text had little flow at all. Most of the footnotes I saw were ~quirky~ and did little to help clarify the heavy jargon.
Finally, speaking of extremely poor reasoning and bad science, I could have dealt with all the former problems had the latter one not made me lose faith in Sykes's ability to speak accurately to this topic. This is best illustrated by one particular passage:
This is an appeal to ignorance: something is true (Neanderthals were less violent than H. sapiens), merely because it has not been proven false. Moreover, it's an unfalsifiable claim. How, when we have not defined what "violence" means (is it physical violence? all forms of murder? all kinds of crimes against humanity? can we compare the atomic bomb to hand-to-hand combat?), when we cannot survey Neanderthal violence like our own, can we prove that Neanderthals are less violent than Homo sapiens??? Sykes's claim that human beings have become more violent over the past 40,000 years is also somewhat unfounded. Again, what constitutes violence? Just because states of power now have the ability to commit crimes against humanity (forcing women to birth babies to feed the economic maw and punish them for having sex, denying everyone the basic right to food and water despite having plenty for all, literally cooking us all alive and possibly driving the species to extinction so they (American Republicans) can purchase their 30th Ford F-150 or whatever the fuck and fulfill their God-given right to gluttony and greed lmfao), does not mean people are more physically violent than they used to be. In fact, I'm pretty sure violent crime is down right now, at least in the US. Also, much violent crime is gun violence. Is that the same as lodging a piece of rock in someone's spine? Do people really commit crimes like that more than they used to? Has the rate of that kind of one on one close contact violence really been accelerating for 40,000 years? Bro it used to be normal for people to torture animals for fun lmfao. I'm just not sure I buy it.
The above claim is a part of Sykes general tendency to position Neanderthals as pure smol beans and humans as stinko bad mean. She at all costs maintains that Neanderthals were kind and not so ugly while humans are way worse in every way...ok? She even mentions tons of examples of Neanderthal children with extremely-gruesome, bone-crushing injuries, some looking very similar to each other, but maintains that these must have all been accidents and could not possibly have been the result of assaults by other Neanderthals. UGHHHH.
Anyway, this book is bad science and I'm not gonna waste more time on it. As the age old maxim says, if it sucks hit the bricks.
The more radical feminist bones in my body (paleontology joke??????) are resistant to writing a bad review for this, because the author apparently does a lot for women in natural science. Sisterhood, The Cause, so on and so forth. However, I have a mild headache this morning and am not inclined to lenience.
The first problem with this is that the title is misleading. "Life, Love, Death and Art" leads me to expect those topics will be the focus of the book, not minor features in a more general book about neanderthals. I made it 30% through the book and have yet to encounter even a whiff of either neanderthal art or love, and death and life are also sidelined in favor of talking about specific excavations, meta-analysis of neanderthal studies itself, and extremely technical details about particular neanderthal specimens. The closest the first third of this book comes to the more down to earth descriptions of neanderthal life its title promises is at the beginning of each chapter, which always features a poem or otherwise ~mellifluous~ piece of prose. These were so bad that they left my boyfriend in stitches when I read them aloud to him. Trying to be Sy Montgomery when you aren't Sy Montgomery will leave you sounding like a tryhard 7th grader in English class.
Poetry example:
Soles slapping alongFeet flying beyond the striders and shufflers
It's good to run!
Puffing lungs, cheeks hot in the wind.
Berries! Swift fingers pluck.
Prose example:
Grey wolf-light filters through trunks as the autumn dawn curls round acorns. Warm fur fluffs against the chill, and the macaques' tawny bodies unfurl to reveal snug youngsters sheltered from the dew....Tan waters run thick and slow around belligerently peering periscope eyes.
Prose example 2:
where Europe will one day be, a sub-tropical kaleidoscope of archipelagos emerge and disappear as the oceans rise and fall...A swam of ammonites explodes, torpedoed by a mosasaur, and shell fragments glitter as they spiral slowly down. Soft muds blossom as the splinters land on the sea floor, an oozing wasteland. It's replenished by a never-ending drizzle of broken sponges, molluscs and decaying forms of uncountable plankton. Spin the earth like a marble: continents creep, muds thicken and squeeze, cementing to limestone....Place a finger on the marble to slow the spinning planet....As age upon age passed, immense pressures bore down, congealing the silica and germinating microscopic crystal lattices that evolved, shifted state. Became flint.
CHILL IT WITH THE ADJECTIVES AND DESCRIBING VERBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The more "literary" approach suggested by both title and these brilliant pieces of poetry and prose was further confused by how jargony this book was. Strangely, Sykes alternated between extremely bad pop science and completely unfounded but exciting conclusions and being so rigorous in her factual accuracy that I found the text had little flow at all. Most of the footnotes I saw were ~quirky~ and did little to help clarify the heavy jargon.
Finally, speaking of extremely poor reasoning and bad science, I could have dealt with all the former problems had the latter one not made me lose faith in Sykes's ability to speak accurately to this topic. This is best illustrated by one particular passage:
On balance, [homo sapiens] may actually come out as more violent than Neanderthals, because nowhere is there evidence they killed youngsters. That's not the case at the early H. sapiens site of Balzi Rossi, north-west Italy, where a child very probably perished after being stabbed or shot in the back. A stone tool fragment was still lodged in one vertebra, and while it's possibly some kind of horrific accident, the weight points towards social conflict. Such aggression in our own species, is certainly well-documented, and clearly accelerated over the past 40,000 years. In contrast, we see no phenomenon through the hundreds of millennia Neanderthals existed.
This is an appeal to ignorance: something is true (Neanderthals were less violent than H. sapiens), merely because it has not been proven false. Moreover, it's an unfalsifiable claim. How, when we have not defined what "violence" means (is it physical violence? all forms of murder? all kinds of crimes against humanity? can we compare the atomic bomb to hand-to-hand combat?), when we cannot survey Neanderthal violence like our own, can we prove that Neanderthals are less violent than Homo sapiens??? Sykes's claim that human beings have become more violent over the past 40,000 years is also somewhat unfounded. Again, what constitutes violence? Just because states of power now have the ability to commit crimes against humanity (forcing women to birth babies to feed the economic maw and punish them for having sex, denying everyone the basic right to food and water despite having plenty for all, literally cooking us all alive and possibly driving the species to extinction so they (American Republicans) can purchase their 30th Ford F-150 or whatever the fuck and fulfill their God-given right to gluttony and greed lmfao), does not mean people are more physically violent than they used to be. In fact, I'm pretty sure violent crime is down right now, at least in the US. Also, much violent crime is gun violence. Is that the same as lodging a piece of rock in someone's spine? Do people really commit crimes like that more than they used to? Has the rate of that kind of one on one close contact violence really been accelerating for 40,000 years? Bro it used to be normal for people to torture animals for fun lmfao. I'm just not sure I buy it.
The above claim is a part of Sykes general tendency to position Neanderthals as pure smol beans and humans as stinko bad mean. She at all costs maintains that Neanderthals were kind and not so ugly while humans are way worse in every way...ok? She even mentions tons of examples of Neanderthal children with extremely-gruesome, bone-crushing injuries, some looking very similar to each other, but maintains that these must have all been accidents and could not possibly have been the result of assaults by other Neanderthals. UGHHHH.
Anyway, this book is bad science and I'm not gonna waste more time on it. As the age old maxim says, if it sucks hit the bricks.
July 16, 2023
I give it 3 stars because it is a comprehensive review of what it is known of neanderthals so far and a big piece of work, and I acknowledge the effort.
However, I would say that 70% of the book, if not more, is just pure speculation and a lot of wishful thinking.
It can't be helped that the fossil record is scarce and discontinuous and therefore inferring complex processes such as culture is almost impossible. But the book is called "neanderthal life, love, death and art" and I would say that the love, death and art part is just the author imagination, and writing about endless possibilities. The fact is that the lack of paintings in caves when, at the same time, homo sapiens were already painting in several places, gives a clue that most likely neanderthals were, indeed, not very artsy. The only remains seems to be some stained shells as any sort of artistic expression. Therefore I think is unnecessary to spend most of the loooong chapter speculating what could have happened to "lost art".
Similarly, when speaking about death, again is mostly author's suggestions and no proof in the fossil record, that they had any kind of funerary practices. There are no graves and the author even proposes that the neanderthals probably ate the remains of the dead ones as a way of mourning. Maybe yes but it seems a long shot to suggest that when there is no proof of it. Maybe they were just tasty (even if the nutritional value wasn't equivalent to eating a bison).
The love part is literally two pages in a book that is mostly descriptions on how to make a levallois tool (quite difficult to swallow to be honest). Maybe exclude it from the title then?
I think the author tries to make the point that they were also human and that we should not underestimate them as we historically have. But I also think there is a problem in what we define as "human". If we are going to have a strict definition in which they should perceive the world as we do, then it does not matter how much you try to bend the evidence, it all looks quite flat and they don't adjust to what we were even when we coexisted.
I think the book would be better if instead of trying to make them more similar to us (unsuccessfully, I would say), the author would acknowledge more that, as a different species, they would also represent a different way of being a human, and I only sensed some hints of that, very vague in one or two occasions in the whole book. That does not make them less interesting, I would say that makes them even more intriguing.
Also, sorry but the author is OBSESSED with the fact that we have 2% of neanderthal in our blood and therefore "they live through us" nowadays and they are not extinct. I share more genes with a fly and I am not going around there thinking bumblebees are living through me because of that. :,). So cut a bit on the ayahuasca there, girl.
I think neanderthals are very cool but this book has not made me change my notion much, because it is mostly speculation. Also, the fact that they seem to have "forgotten" how to make fire even in the coldest periods they lived in (facepalm), and that they are compared more to chimps than to coexisting homo sapiens across the whole book, does not help their case. They are still very unknown to us, for sure displaying some sort of intelligence if not sophistication, but maybe it will remain like this given how little we find about them. I would say if you are an expert or someone thrilled by lithics, you will have a blast with this! otherwise it is a book quite harsh to swallow.
I put my hopes in finding a neanderthal in the permafrost not long from now (for sure there must be one) and we will hopefully get some more answers.
(PS: It is also weird that the author does not mention the neanderthal cave art that is 60000 years old in Spain, found before she wrote the book, but maybe it has been rejected since, i am not tuned with archeology news)
However, I would say that 70% of the book, if not more, is just pure speculation and a lot of wishful thinking.
It can't be helped that the fossil record is scarce and discontinuous and therefore inferring complex processes such as culture is almost impossible. But the book is called "neanderthal life, love, death and art" and I would say that the love, death and art part is just the author imagination, and writing about endless possibilities. The fact is that the lack of paintings in caves when, at the same time, homo sapiens were already painting in several places, gives a clue that most likely neanderthals were, indeed, not very artsy. The only remains seems to be some stained shells as any sort of artistic expression. Therefore I think is unnecessary to spend most of the loooong chapter speculating what could have happened to "lost art".
Similarly, when speaking about death, again is mostly author's suggestions and no proof in the fossil record, that they had any kind of funerary practices. There are no graves and the author even proposes that the neanderthals probably ate the remains of the dead ones as a way of mourning. Maybe yes but it seems a long shot to suggest that when there is no proof of it. Maybe they were just tasty (even if the nutritional value wasn't equivalent to eating a bison).
The love part is literally two pages in a book that is mostly descriptions on how to make a levallois tool (quite difficult to swallow to be honest). Maybe exclude it from the title then?
I think the author tries to make the point that they were also human and that we should not underestimate them as we historically have. But I also think there is a problem in what we define as "human". If we are going to have a strict definition in which they should perceive the world as we do, then it does not matter how much you try to bend the evidence, it all looks quite flat and they don't adjust to what we were even when we coexisted.
I think the book would be better if instead of trying to make them more similar to us (unsuccessfully, I would say), the author would acknowledge more that, as a different species, they would also represent a different way of being a human, and I only sensed some hints of that, very vague in one or two occasions in the whole book. That does not make them less interesting, I would say that makes them even more intriguing.
Also, sorry but the author is OBSESSED with the fact that we have 2% of neanderthal in our blood and therefore "they live through us" nowadays and they are not extinct. I share more genes with a fly and I am not going around there thinking bumblebees are living through me because of that. :,). So cut a bit on the ayahuasca there, girl.
I think neanderthals are very cool but this book has not made me change my notion much, because it is mostly speculation. Also, the fact that they seem to have "forgotten" how to make fire even in the coldest periods they lived in (facepalm), and that they are compared more to chimps than to coexisting homo sapiens across the whole book, does not help their case. They are still very unknown to us, for sure displaying some sort of intelligence if not sophistication, but maybe it will remain like this given how little we find about them. I would say if you are an expert or someone thrilled by lithics, you will have a blast with this! otherwise it is a book quite harsh to swallow.
I put my hopes in finding a neanderthal in the permafrost not long from now (for sure there must be one) and we will hopefully get some more answers.
(PS: It is also weird that the author does not mention the neanderthal cave art that is 60000 years old in Spain, found before she wrote the book, but maybe it has been rejected since, i am not tuned with archeology news)
March 3, 2021
How do I explain what this book did for me? It reaffirmed my youthful obsession with early hominins, it made me hopeful for ongoing understanding and justice for the past and for those who came before us, it delighted me, it fascinated me. It was sobering in the questions it asks about the future. None of this review is coherent now that I've written it, and I should not have started my Wednesday by finishing this book, hello distraction all day, but please read this book.
December 9, 2022
We read this book for our neuroscience book club, message me if you want our summary and discussion questions 😊
I often avoid books on the deep history of hominids because they’re frequently written sensationistically by non-experts in the field and confidently make a lot of unsubstantiated claims. I think something about being a Homo Sapiens yourself makes you feel comfortable pontificating on our origins with only light knowledge of the field. This book definitely does not suffer from that problem. I picked this up because it was written by a Paleolithic archaeologist, so you get the info right from the source, and because I wasn’t aware of any other comprehensive popular science book about Neanderthals. I learned a lot of interesting things from this book.
Sykes makes the case that rather than a dead-end stop on the way to real humans, Neanderthals were denizens of a world “as wide and rich as the Roman Empire�. Neanderthals endured for an astonishing 350,000 years, until we lose sight of them � or, at least their fossils and artefacts � somewhere around 40 ka. Given this, I was surprised to learn that at most, Neanderthals probably only numbered in the tens of thousands in terms of worldwide population at their peak. “At any point in time there may have been fewer Neanderthals walking about than commuters passing each day through Clapham Junction, London’s busiest train station.�
I was intrigued to learn that several older Neanderthal remains have been found, even with debilitating injuries, indicating at least some societies took care of the infirm. Interestingly, Sykes states that it is difficult to determine the age of hominin remains beyond about 50 years old, so we might not ever find out if Neanderthals often lived beyond 50. The discussion on climate was also really interesting. Like Steve Brusate’s recent The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, Sykes emphasizes that there wasn’t one period known as the ice age. Instead, it is used to refer collectively to intermittent glacial periods over the past 400 ka or so, and contrary to our popular conception, Neanderthals actually lived through more interglacials than glacial periods in that time span. Although the chapter on language wasn’t conclusive, I enjoyed Sykes� balanced discussion, indicating that it’s really hard to find direct evidence, but given the complexity of some of their technologies, like very specific knapping techniques, adhesive recipes, and division of labor, it seems like some type of organized communication was happening. But it does seem like Neanderthal throats could make pretty much the same range of sounds as ours. They also have the same FOXP2 gene as us, and different from our closest primate relatives, but it may have been expressed differently. It was also really amusing to me that it’s not controversial that Neanderthals used fire extensively, many of their living spaces were arranged around hearths, but it is controversial if they could generate fire themselves rather than just “gather� it where it was already burning. It just seems like people are taking issue with the easiest part of the whole process. Like ok, maybe they were cooking regularly, smoking hides, and doing controlled burns of the landscape, but there’s no evidence they were smart enough to strike two rocks together onto a twig pile. Leaving aside of course that striking flint together was pretty much their main occupation, since they used to it fashion all their tools. As an artist, I really enjoyed reading about all the evidence that they were purifying and collecting concentrated pigments and applying it to objects like shells. I thought Sykes made a pretty compelling case that they had a sense of aesthetic perhaps even symbolic visual pleasure.
One of my favorite artifacts is a finding so random and small but so chillingly full of possibility that I told all my non-book-club friends about it straight away. “The Pradelles hyaena bone is even more exceptional. On a surface just 5cm (2in.) long, a Neanderthal made nine parallel incisions, with extremely similar shapes. All cut in the same direction with a single tool and probably at the same time, the final mark looks to have been crammed into the narrowing width of the bone, as if its inclusion was more important than the overall appearance. Then it gets weird: near the third line’s base is a further set of eight minuscule paired nicks, each set intersecting at their origin points� Rather than an ordinal �1 to 100� understanding, it’s possible Neanderthal numeracy was based in sets, like tally systems.�
The book also got me really excited about the future of Neanderthal research. First of all, I didn’t know that “so far we’ve sampled fewer than 40 Neanderthals � and have only 3 high-coverage genomes � from among the thousands of skeletal parts in museums, representing hundreds of individuals.� I feel like there’s so much left to discover from just the sites we’ve already recovered. More thrilling though, is Sykes’s assertion that it’s just a matter of time until a fully preserved Neanderthal falls out of melting permafrost, thus abruptly concluding many long-standing arguments such as whether they had compound tools or stitched real clothing (as opposed to just wrapping furs around themselves).
Overall, I came away from this book thinking that we’ve made too much of the differences between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals, and even calling us different species is pretty silly because we clearly interbred and had a lot in common while our lineages co-existed and co-mingled.
Ok, so that covers much of what I liked about the book, and we had one of our best book club discussions to date talking about it. However, reading it often felt like an absolute tribulation because of the insane level of minutia Sykes insists on deliberating. In the chapter about knapping techniques, I felt like knocking this giant book against my wall to make it into a more streamlined discoid shape. This book really needs an editor to kindly usher half of it into an online supplement. However, if you’re either very tolerant of excessive detail in the service of thoroughness, or are a competent skipper of the repetitive, it's the best popular science book on hominin history I’ve yet seen.
In short, would recommend this book to anyone interested in deep hominin history, but just know it’s ok to TLDR some of the chapter-middles.
I often avoid books on the deep history of hominids because they’re frequently written sensationistically by non-experts in the field and confidently make a lot of unsubstantiated claims. I think something about being a Homo Sapiens yourself makes you feel comfortable pontificating on our origins with only light knowledge of the field. This book definitely does not suffer from that problem. I picked this up because it was written by a Paleolithic archaeologist, so you get the info right from the source, and because I wasn’t aware of any other comprehensive popular science book about Neanderthals. I learned a lot of interesting things from this book.
Sykes makes the case that rather than a dead-end stop on the way to real humans, Neanderthals were denizens of a world “as wide and rich as the Roman Empire�. Neanderthals endured for an astonishing 350,000 years, until we lose sight of them � or, at least their fossils and artefacts � somewhere around 40 ka. Given this, I was surprised to learn that at most, Neanderthals probably only numbered in the tens of thousands in terms of worldwide population at their peak. “At any point in time there may have been fewer Neanderthals walking about than commuters passing each day through Clapham Junction, London’s busiest train station.�
I was intrigued to learn that several older Neanderthal remains have been found, even with debilitating injuries, indicating at least some societies took care of the infirm. Interestingly, Sykes states that it is difficult to determine the age of hominin remains beyond about 50 years old, so we might not ever find out if Neanderthals often lived beyond 50. The discussion on climate was also really interesting. Like Steve Brusate’s recent The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, Sykes emphasizes that there wasn’t one period known as the ice age. Instead, it is used to refer collectively to intermittent glacial periods over the past 400 ka or so, and contrary to our popular conception, Neanderthals actually lived through more interglacials than glacial periods in that time span. Although the chapter on language wasn’t conclusive, I enjoyed Sykes� balanced discussion, indicating that it’s really hard to find direct evidence, but given the complexity of some of their technologies, like very specific knapping techniques, adhesive recipes, and division of labor, it seems like some type of organized communication was happening. But it does seem like Neanderthal throats could make pretty much the same range of sounds as ours. They also have the same FOXP2 gene as us, and different from our closest primate relatives, but it may have been expressed differently. It was also really amusing to me that it’s not controversial that Neanderthals used fire extensively, many of their living spaces were arranged around hearths, but it is controversial if they could generate fire themselves rather than just “gather� it where it was already burning. It just seems like people are taking issue with the easiest part of the whole process. Like ok, maybe they were cooking regularly, smoking hides, and doing controlled burns of the landscape, but there’s no evidence they were smart enough to strike two rocks together onto a twig pile. Leaving aside of course that striking flint together was pretty much their main occupation, since they used to it fashion all their tools. As an artist, I really enjoyed reading about all the evidence that they were purifying and collecting concentrated pigments and applying it to objects like shells. I thought Sykes made a pretty compelling case that they had a sense of aesthetic perhaps even symbolic visual pleasure.
One of my favorite artifacts is a finding so random and small but so chillingly full of possibility that I told all my non-book-club friends about it straight away. “The Pradelles hyaena bone is even more exceptional. On a surface just 5cm (2in.) long, a Neanderthal made nine parallel incisions, with extremely similar shapes. All cut in the same direction with a single tool and probably at the same time, the final mark looks to have been crammed into the narrowing width of the bone, as if its inclusion was more important than the overall appearance. Then it gets weird: near the third line’s base is a further set of eight minuscule paired nicks, each set intersecting at their origin points� Rather than an ordinal �1 to 100� understanding, it’s possible Neanderthal numeracy was based in sets, like tally systems.�
The book also got me really excited about the future of Neanderthal research. First of all, I didn’t know that “so far we’ve sampled fewer than 40 Neanderthals � and have only 3 high-coverage genomes � from among the thousands of skeletal parts in museums, representing hundreds of individuals.� I feel like there’s so much left to discover from just the sites we’ve already recovered. More thrilling though, is Sykes’s assertion that it’s just a matter of time until a fully preserved Neanderthal falls out of melting permafrost, thus abruptly concluding many long-standing arguments such as whether they had compound tools or stitched real clothing (as opposed to just wrapping furs around themselves).
Overall, I came away from this book thinking that we’ve made too much of the differences between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals, and even calling us different species is pretty silly because we clearly interbred and had a lot in common while our lineages co-existed and co-mingled.
Ok, so that covers much of what I liked about the book, and we had one of our best book club discussions to date talking about it. However, reading it often felt like an absolute tribulation because of the insane level of minutia Sykes insists on deliberating. In the chapter about knapping techniques, I felt like knocking this giant book against my wall to make it into a more streamlined discoid shape. This book really needs an editor to kindly usher half of it into an online supplement. However, if you’re either very tolerant of excessive detail in the service of thoroughness, or are a competent skipper of the repetitive, it's the best popular science book on hominin history I’ve yet seen.
In short, would recommend this book to anyone interested in deep hominin history, but just know it’s ok to TLDR some of the chapter-middles.
March 19, 2023
There was way too much speculation in this book for me to actually enjoy it. I am not a fan of the discourse mode where someone takes a speculative and extremely uncertain idea as a premise and runs with it to game out the possibilities (e.g. "(small) Study (in mice) shows new drug may extend lifespans" � "How will they ration this new wonder drug? Will only rich people be able to afford it?"). This book feels a lot like that. It is amazing the amount of detail and information about Neandertals that archaeologists have managed to extract from caves and bones and DNA, but this book loves to indulge in the "Well maybe they had religious ceremonies" or "They probably took care of their ill" game.
I think in some ways some of it is a response to the rank skepticism that saw Neandertals as anything except basically somewhat smart chimps; I am not saying that Neandertals could not have been intelligent or had culture or whatever, just that engaging in wild speculation about how capable they were is not a great counterweight to undue skepticism.
I also really hated the chapter openings, where Sykes tries to set the mood with some sort of first-person-ish or stream of consciousness type paragraph. I gather she's trying to get you to imagine yourself as a Neandertal, but I find that sort of artsy presentation a bit pretentious and trite.
1.5 of 5 stars
I think in some ways some of it is a response to the rank skepticism that saw Neandertals as anything except basically somewhat smart chimps; I am not saying that Neandertals could not have been intelligent or had culture or whatever, just that engaging in wild speculation about how capable they were is not a great counterweight to undue skepticism.
I also really hated the chapter openings, where Sykes tries to set the mood with some sort of first-person-ish or stream of consciousness type paragraph. I gather she's trying to get you to imagine yourself as a Neandertal, but I find that sort of artsy presentation a bit pretentious and trite.
1.5 of 5 stars
January 18, 2021
This is a needed book. What it achieves in distilling the sense that Neanderthals were human beings with dignity is so necessary for our collective (and ever-growing) understanding of who they were -- and are. Such disservice has been done to the Neanderthals since their modern discovery some 160 years ago, imagining them as unsophisticated knuckledraggers and worse. Rebecca Wragg Sykes has read the research -- seemingly all of it (!) -- and brings to us, the general readers, a thoroughly cited and compelling appraisal that catches us up to current studies and ideas about who these people were, what they were like. We meet not a monolithic stereotype of the species but a complex, fanned diversity of who they might have been. And all of it is backed up with careful research you can trust.
Neanderthals appeared in the first novel I published, so my affinity with them is stronger than casual, perhaps. But what I'm excited about is how this book will fertilize the imaginations of more fiction writers interested in the paleolithic. This book is so impressive that there's no way it won't affect prehistoric depictions -- and for the better.
Neanderthals appeared in the first novel I published, so my affinity with them is stronger than casual, perhaps. But what I'm excited about is how this book will fertilize the imaginations of more fiction writers interested in the paleolithic. This book is so impressive that there's no way it won't affect prehistoric depictions -- and for the better.
September 18, 2020
An impressive work, collecting the most up-to-date facts about our most famous fellow hominid. The span of this book is enormous, covering every possible aspect of the Neanderthal's lifestyle. Describing many discoveries, Sykes is also painting an interesting history of paleontology and scientific progress.
The book is very detailed, sometimes to a fault - a whole chapter about different methods of making stone tools was somewhat exhausting. Sykes sometimes is taking an astonishing leap of faith, trying to imagine the inner life of so long gone beings. She is disarmingly biased towards her subjects of study but after over a century of slander, I suppose the Neanderthal deserves to have such a valiant advocate.
Thanks to the publisher, Bloomsbury USA, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.
The book is very detailed, sometimes to a fault - a whole chapter about different methods of making stone tools was somewhat exhausting. Sykes sometimes is taking an astonishing leap of faith, trying to imagine the inner life of so long gone beings. She is disarmingly biased towards her subjects of study but after over a century of slander, I suppose the Neanderthal deserves to have such a valiant advocate.
Thanks to the publisher, Bloomsbury USA, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.
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