Synopsis
To one nineteenth-century scholar, their fierce, ridged brows were evidence of a "moral darkness" that set them irrevocably apart from human beings. Some commentators accused them of cannibalism. Yet by the 1970s the Neandertals were being hailed as "the first flower people" and praised for their apparent compassion and religious piety.
The story of how scientists could come to such divergent conclusions about a set of bones unearthed in Germany in 1856 unfolds with irresistible detail in this enthralling book. Even as The Neandertals assesses the identity, kinship, and character of our possible ancestors, it casts a wry eye on the modern Homo sapiens who have embraced or disavowed them and illuminates the peculiar way in which even science is shaped by human needs and biases.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Reviews
Once mistakenly characterized as brutally apish creatures thought to walk with bent knees, the robust, muscular Neandertals, who lived between 100,000 and 35,000 years ago, are now considered pre-modern humans and possibly our ancestors. Neandertals buried their dead in graves, made body ornaments and had strong social ties. This exciting history follows the discovery and interpretation of Neandertal remains from the unearthing of the first skeleton in the Neander Valley, Germany, in 1856 to modern DNA studies. Rudolf Virchow, father of modern pathology, who rejected the idea of human evolution, dismissed the Neandertal remains as both pathological and recent, but a wealth of fossil finds proved him wrong. The authors assert that modern humans may have evolved from the same parent stock as Neandertals. Trinkaus is a University of New Mexico anthropologist, Shipman a Johns Hopkins professor of medicine. Illustrated.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Trinkaus, a leading Neandertal scholar from the University of New Mexico, has teamed with Shipman (medicine, Johns Hopkins) to produce a fascinating account of the discovery and interpretation of Neandertal fossils from the first find in 1856 to the present. By focusing on the men and women involved in the ongoing effort to understand how Neandertals lived, the authors show that personalities and prevailing social attitudes played as large a role as the fossils themselves in our coming to terms with these enigmatic ancestors. As the authors eloquently put it, "Infuriatingly, the fossils do not speak for themselves. It is the examining scientists who bring them to life, often endowing them with their own best or worst characteristics." In bringing this book to life, Trinkaus and Shipman have endowed it with healthy doses of humanity and wisdom. Essential for all history of science and human prehistory collections.
- Eric Hinsdale, Trinity Univ. Lib., San Antonio
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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