[review] [endlinks]
[excerpt]
A Peter N. Nevraurnont Book, Macmillan, 1995.
Suggested price: $39.95
Reviewed by
The last Neanderthal. Was she a woman given to the tall, slender strangers who had invaded her family's home territory? Had she been taken as a wife by one of the invaders and borne him a son of mixed heritage who was accepted for his hunting prowess and raw strength?
Or was the last Neanderthal a man running for survival, chased by the same odd-looking strangers intent on claiming new lands? Stronger but slow-witted compared to the men who hunted him, did the last Neanderthal suspect his existence was in peril?
Ian Tattersall, author of The Last Neanderthal: The Rise, Success, and Mysterious Extinction of Our Closest Human Relatives, begins his book by offering these two scenarios as possible explanations for why the Neanderthal vanished roughly 30,000 years ago. Yet it is soon clear that he considers the first option less likely than the second, although he doesn't admit this until nearly the end of his examination of all things Neanderthal.
Tattersall has put together an exhaustive, nonacademic book on Neanderthals in particular and human evolution in general. Meant for nonspecialists, The Last Neanderthal offers as much as science knows about these mysterious humans, and explains why we know so little.
Known only through a few simple tools, a few skeletons, and a scattering of bone fragments stretching across Europe and into Asia, the big-brained Neanderthals appear to have been highly successful for 150,000 years - possibly longer - during the height of the last ice age. Remnants of their lives have been found as far north as Wales, as far west as the Iberian coast, and as far east as Uzbekistan, although most sites are concentrated in western France. The tools they left at cave sites include simple scraping and hunting implements made from chert, flint, or whatever rock was handy. These sites, however, offer little evidence of social organization, at least as it can be measured by noting where cast-off bones of prey are found in relation to ash traces of fire, tools, and human remains. And since few of their bones were buried, there are few clues to help us learn what the Neanderthal considered important.
To help the reader better understand the mystery and conflicting opinions surrounding the Neanderthal, Tattersall offers a lengthy treatise on human evolution as theorized by paleoanthropologists. He provides detailed explanations of how fossil and tool remains were dated in the past and how more accurate methods are used today. Tattersall also reviews past efforts to explain evolution by offering theories such as evolutionary synthesis (new species arising from old ones though gradual adaptive mutation) and punctuated equilibria (time, isolation, and further environmental adaptation quickly rendering two related groups too different to interbreed, thus separating species from subspecies).
The author notes that the size of the Homo neanderthalensis brain is similar to that of Homo sapiens. Significant differences in shape, however, point to the two being related but of different species. He suggests that both probably descended from Homo heidelbergensis - yet another ancestor in the human family tree, whose skull bears similarities to neanderthalensis and sapiens. This view means, of course, that sapiens and Neanderthals could not interbreed, which discounts the first dramatic scenario that Tattersall offers of the Neanderthal demise. He does, however, attempt to balance the discussion by reviewing the theory that early modern humans were born of Neanderthal, made different through mutation, and eventually surpassed their evolutionary parents.
Having reviewed the facts and finds, Tattersall takes us through more than 100 years of interpretation of the hard evidence uncovered about the Neanderthals. The tour begins in the nineteenth century with Rudolf Virchow. Known as the father of modern cell biology, Virchow believed that the bones simply belonged to a deformed human, possibly one suffering from rickets. Other early explanations were that these bones were the remains of "idiots" (an observation that calls to mind the response Quasimodo elicited from characters in the Hunchback of Notre Dame). Finally, Tattersall brings the reader to the current theory of the Neanderthal, that their bones belong to a distinct species of humans, now gone.
Even though Tattersall has written the book for a general audience, he writes in the academic pattern of examining all proposed theories, discounting those he disagrees with and then explaining why one theory is better than the rest. While some readers may shake their head and wonder how so much theory and disagreement can arise from the sparse pickings offered by the fossil record (and Tattersall does not explain how only a handful of partial skulls, skeletons, and tools can be formulated into several million years of evolution), others will view the book as a primer for human evolution and the Neanderthal.
In deference to the sometimes dense argument, the book is organized beautifully. The oversize pages feature dozens of full-color photographs showing the bone fragments, fossil sites, and tools of these ancient people. The captions are located nearby and Tattersall uses this space to explain further the life of the Neanderthal or to point out what is merely sapiens speculation. For instance, on page 16, a series of photographs begins with a Neanderthal skull and shows each stage of reconstruction until the full face of a beetle-browed man with a sloped brain and big nose appears. The author reminds us that eye and skin coloring, hair texture and distribution, as well as the form of ears and lips, are purely conjectural.
Equally well placed, the charts and graphics also tend to explain various theories more succinctly than Tattersall himself. And rather than filling the pages from top to bottom with text, the words are formatted into two columns that rarely claim more than half a page. This attractive layout leaves room for photographs and detailed footnotes. The only distraction is Tattersall's frequent use of adjectives, particularly "fortunate." Their overuse is totally unnecessary to support his views.
After exhausting the existing knowledge of Neanderthals, Tattersall ends his book with a quick look at early modern man. The clear contrast between Neanderthal sites and the art-filled caves at Chauvet and Lascaux (among others) point out the obvious difference between the two peoples, them and us.
For all their success, the Neanderthals offer little evidence of life beyond mere survival, although Tattersall is quick to say that we just don't know what type of social or emotional interaction existed for Neanderthal. But as Neanderthals were dying off, early humans already showed a propensity to shape their environment to suit their needs or wants: painting cave walls, adorning themselves with beads or carved jewelry, making whistles and flutes, or developing needles to sew better-fitting clothes. Perhaps language is what set early man apart from his Neanderthal neighbors. While the Neanderthal skull suggests they may have been able to produce sounds for communicating, Tattersall writes that language as we know it today may have been what allowed sapiens to make the leap in thought that gave us the tools and ability to shape the world to suit our needs, rather than adapting to suit it.
Keena D. Lykins is an award-winning writer and editor with more than 10 years of experience in journalism.
Today when we think of the Cro-Magnons we tend to focus on their more admirable achievements, particularly the ethereal art of such sites as Lascaux, Altamire, and Font de Gaume. Like us, however, the Cro-Magnons must have had a darker side. Their arrival in Europe heralded the extinction of a large variety of mammal species. Those that have survived until now are those that managed to adapt to this remarkable new phenomenon on the landscape. The Neanderthals, it seems, could not - which is not surprising, for it is hard to imagine two species so similar, if at the same time so different, sharing the same habitat for long.
Purchase The Last Neanderthal at Amazon.com, or visit our Web Bookstores page.