Mike Baltzer
10:00 AM Period
Neanderthal
Author: Paul Jordan
First Published 1999
Neanderthal is a book that states just what it is on the found cover. It is a ‘story of human
origins’. Paul Jordan discusses whether or not Neanderthals are a distant ancestor of modern man
or if they are simply a cousin of modern man who went extinct.
Jordan begins with the discovery of the first Neanderthal in Neandertal, Germany, or
what it is called in English the Neander Valley. He goes into great detail about how the remains
were discovered with great detail, telling the story of the people involved and what they thought
they have found.
The beginning of the book also goes into detail about society at the time and what the
prevailing idea about the origins of humans and the world as a whole. There is information
detailing what people would have thought about the discovery of an ancestor of man. The book
mentions Darwin generally avoiding the subject of the human evolution in his book, The Origin
of Species. He only made a slight mention at the end.
Jordan also covers false finds of Neanderthals and remains of humans that were supposed
to pre-date Neanderthals. He talks about both sides of the argument latching onto any find that
would support their views of the world.
The book continues into more recent finds of Neanderthal remains stating that some of
the most significant finds were found in the early 20th Century. The author continues talking
about the research of Neanderthal man in the early 1900s, discussing a bit about people trying to
distance Neanderthal as far from modern man as possible.
At this point, the book starts to turn to how Neanderthals lived, what tools they made and
used, and how they lived. It discusses where they lived (mostly caves, but they did make shelters
when caves were not an option). They had the use of fire, but it was limited. Their tools were
made of stone which fits with the age they lived in, 130,000-30,000 BP.
After discussing the life of the Neanderthal man, the author journeys into species that
came before the Neanderthal man. He delves into great detail about the similarities and
differences between the Swanscombe fragments and what we know about Neanderthals. The
author also talks about whether Neanderthals could breed with their contemporaries who were
not Neanderthals (DNA evidences suggests no).
He works into discussing apes and their evolution into hominids, working into talking
about modern chimpanzees and their divergence from modern man’s ancestors and how studying
them gives us clues as to how these ancient species lived.
The authors steps into the human line of evolution as well as discussing modern man
before ending the book in the epilogue and discussing Neanderthals importance to our
understanding of our origins. He states that it is unlikely given the time line that Neanderthals
evolved into a different species and not likely interbreed with another species and disappeared.
The points I found most interesting in the book were the origin story of first discovery of
the Neanderthals. I had heard of Neanderthals into my previous schooling, but nothing that went
in depth. I didn’t know why they were called Neanderthals or that they were even discovered
before Darwin published his book. The book didn’t do the best job at explaining people who
were studying Neanderthals or discovering them, but I liked this as it got me looking up these
people to get a better understanding of their relation to Neanderthals (Although I must admit that
some information or explanations about people rather than dates and places would have been
helpful when reading the book). People such as Marcellin Boule who published the first study of
a complete Neanderthal. While the book talked about him trying to put distance between
Neanderthals and modern man as he didn’t embrace Darwinism but he did have doubts about the
Piltdown man and he argued that eoliths were created naturally.
The book does a good job of showing how Neanderthals fit into the evolutionary chain of
hominids. The author is of the mind that Neanderthals were of the same Genus but are not a
subspecies of human. He supports the view that Neanderthals may not have been directly related
to modern man, but that they did interbreed. His evidence supporting this view compelled me to
look into finding more information about this view as well as the opposing view that
Neanderthals should be classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis rather than Homo
neanderthalensis. Most of the information I found were research papers that were difficult to
read.
I have mixed opinions on one issue I had with the book. There were a number of
terms/abbreviations that I didn’t know so I ended up having to look up that information to
understand what the author was discussing. An example of this is the BP abbreviation used when
giving dates. I found that BP means ‘Before Present’ and is commonly used when discussing
dates involving radiocarbon dating. The quote on the front of the book: ‘an extraordinary
archaeological and educational tour of the ancient world’ is a spot on description of this book;
however, I’ve only ever had a passing interest in archaeology flew over my head so I had to stop
and find definitions for the words. This slowed down my reading of the book, but overall I think
it is a net gain as I understand more about archaeology and reading articles and books that use
those terms.
I found that the class sessions where Neanderthals and ancient man were discussed
helped me with reading this book rather than the other way round. As I was reading the book, I
would come across information that we went over in class such as the descriptions of the
Neanderthals cranial cavity and the jaw line and how they related to the size of the brain. I
enjoyed points of the book, specifically where the author was talking about the discovery of the
first Neanderthals as well as the forgeries that happened. Other parts of the book were dull in my
opinion. The information was good, but it just did not strike my interest. This happened mainly
when discussing the species that came before Neanderthal.
The book had a positive effect on me in that I’ve been looking for recent articles that
discuss our changing theories and information about Neanderthals. I will definitely keep an eye
out for any news that mentions our primitive ancestors and cousins.