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Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art
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About This Book
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.
Reviews
"In this deeply researched 'twenty-first-century portrait of the Neanderthals' from birth to burial and beyond, palaeolithic archaeologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes smashes stereotypes ..."
"One of the more astonishing impacts of Kindred is the obsessional interest in Neanderthals ..."
"Throughout, Sykes makes the case that Neanderthals were not all that different from Homo sapiens, biologically and behaviorally, and asks the provocative question of 'why we are here and not them.' While she has no conclusive answer to provide, she brings the history of this long-extinct species to life in assured fashion."
"Wragg Sykes has made a career studying Neanderthals, and she skillfully lays out a massive amount of information, much of which has turned up over the past few decades ..."
"Through painstaking forensic analysis of an eclectic collection of fragmented artifacts, and in a manner at times achieving the suspense and excitement of a Hollywood thriller, Ms."
"Accumulated from the approximately 200 known Neanderthal sites, the information that Sykes evocatively and enthusiastically presents enables readers to appreciate Neanderthals as sentient creatures, and possibly imagine themselves sharing, Jean Auel–like, a Pleistocene encounter with them."
"Kindred is important reading not just for anyone interested in these ancient cousins of ours, but also for anyone interested in humanity."
"The book's scope is impressive, spanning from the initial discoveries and interpretations of Neanderthals to the diverse aspects of their biology and behavior ..."
"If your ancestry traces back to populations outside sub-Saharan Africa, there's a good chance that your genome includes contributions from Neanderthals."
"Rebecca Wragg Sykes's fact-packed but highly readable book puts us right with a superbly authoritative guided tour of much new evidence ..."
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