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The Neanderthal's Necklace: In Search of the First Thinkers
The Neanderthals were members of a parallel humanity that evolved in Europe for hundreds of thousands of years. They manufactured stone tools like the Cro--Magnons, the modern humans -- with whom they were in direct competition for thousands of years -- and they used language. They were human not only because of their place in our evolutionary group but also in the spiritual nature of their beliefs and in their emotions, in their very human minds. The way they lived and the reasons they disappeared fifty thousand years ago offer a surprising mirror in which we can examine and learn more about our no--so--alien lives. In The Neanderthala s Necklace, Juan Luis Arsuaga -- Europea s most celebrated paleoanthropologist -- displays not only his well--known scientific acuity but also his talents as an engaging teacher and storyteller, giving us a concise and readable description of what we know about who we are and how we came to be so.
356 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1999
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398 people want to read
About the author
Juan Luis Arsuaga
50 books131 followersJuan Luis Arsuaga Ferreras es un paleoantropólogo español. Es doctor en Ciencias Biológicas por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid y catedrático de Paleontología en la Facultad de Ciencias Geológicas de esta misma universidad. Desde julio de 2013 es director científico del Museo de la Evolución Humana de Burgos.
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May 22, 2020
Otro estupendo libro de divulgación antropológica de J. L. Arsuaga, uno de los directores de Atapuerca.
October 10, 2017
The Neanderthal as a nearly contemporary, parallel species.
This is a fine book that sheds further light on what the Neanderthals were like and what happened to them. Written in an engaging, clear and almost poetic style (the translation by Andy Klatt is first rate, his surprising use of "irregardless" on page 182 notwithstanding), this book gives us a sense of the latest understanding with an emphasis on evidence from the Sierra de Artapuerca excavation site in Spain where paleoanthropologist Professor Arsuaga is co-director. The black, white and gray illustrations by Juan Carlos Sastre nicely augment the text.
Arsuaga begins with the observation that today we exist almost alone in the sense that there are no very similar species extant, the last one being the Neanderthal in Europe. Arsuaga then traces our descent until he arrives at "Domesticated Man" in the Epilogue. His detours and asides are very interesting. I was especially pleased to learn that there are well-preserved wooden lances (or spears) used by archaic humans fully 400,000 years ago. (p. 182-183) I also found interesting his digression on what caused the extinction of the megafauna of America some 10,000 years ago (in Chapter Six, "The Great Extinction").
Primarily, though, this book is about the cultural, behavioral and conceptional abilities (as derived from the archaeological evidence) that separate humans from other living creatures, especially the Neanderthals. Arsuaga reveals his purpose on page 280: "I have been trying to summarize the evidence available concerning the thorniest problem of human evolution, the development of consciousness, which is the defining characteristic of humankind." He had asked in the Prologue on page ix, "Apart from us, has there ever been a life form on earth that was conscious of its own existence and of its place in the world?" In short his answer is yes, the Neanderthal, whom he defines as our contemporary, not as an archaic human species. (p. 278)
Arsuaga's story begins about 2.5 million years ago when Homo habilis emerged in Africa (presumably from another post-australopithecine species) with a noticeably bigger brain than the first upright walking apes. "A short while later" (geologically-speaking) Homo ergaster (probably the same as Homo erectus) appeared. Arsuaga sees Homo ergaster as the first hominid to migrate out of Africa about 1.5 million years ago, spreading to Europe and southeast Asia. Not only did these proto-humans have a significantly larger brain than Homo habilis, they had also begun "to create a social and cultural environment...that afforded them ever more independence from the physical environment," which is one of the reasons they were able to survive in diverse climates, especially in the cold of the northern latitudes.
Then about 300,000 years ago Arsuaga sees the development independently in Europe and Africa of a "second great expansion of the human brain" producing "somewhat different results." (p. 307) When modern humans again emerged out of Africa about 150,000 years ago they arrived in Europe to find the Neanderthal. The somewhat different results of their independent evolution prevented the species from merging and eventually the Neanderthal died out.
Although some authorities have emphasized competition with modern humans as the reason for the Neanderthal's demise, Arsuaga believes we need more information before we can say "in a convincing fashion" what happened. (p. 292) He does say somewhat imprecisely that the Neanderthal was "defeated by the cold" while the Cro-Magnons due to "superior technology," especially with bone awls and needles to fashion well-fitting animal skins, etc., were able to survive the glacial maximum 25,000 years ago. (p. 302) However on page 78 while noting that the Cro-Magnons had developed physical features that made them look relatively childlike--a gracile build and a "small, minimally protruding face," ("neoteny" is the technical term for this phenomenon)--Arsuaga may have tipped his hand. He observes, "Cro-Magnons must have looked cute to the Neanderthals! They may have discovered later, to their dismay, what kind of people they were dealing with, and as sweet as the Cro-Magnons may have looked, what kind of behavior they could expect."
(I had a sudden vision here of an abandoned Cro-Magnon child found by a Neanderthal family. They tenderly take the child in, nourish it and bring it up as their own. At a certain age, the child realizes that it is not Neanderthal and... Well, I'm sure there are a few science fiction stories that resolve this premise for better or for worse.)
Arsuaga's account therefore presents the Neanderthal as a co-existing species, not our ancestor, with whom there was little to no interbreeding. Nonetheless Arsuaga has great respect and affection for the Neanderthal. He writes on page 284 that "It would thrill me more than anything if I could say that I had even a drop of Neanderthal blood to connect me with those powerful Europeans of long ago." His portrait is of a "human" species different from (not less than) ourselves that had culture and ritual and self-adornment (as evidenced by, e.g., the Neanderthal's necklace found at Grotte du Renne in France), a being that had achieved consciousness, although of a sort undoubtedly different than ours. In one particular, Arsuaga argues that the fossil evidence suggests that the Neanderthal's phonetic apparatus would not have been able to produce "sounds as distinct as ours," (p. 268). This physical characteristic may have reduced its ability to develop a culture as extensive as the Cro-Magnon's which we know about in part through the cave murals that they painted in France and Spain.
What one feels strongly from Arsuaga's account is the sense of loss that the Neanderthal is no longer with us. How much we could have learned from a being that was at once much like ourselves, but intriguingly different.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “Understanding Evolution and Ourselves”
This is a fine book that sheds further light on what the Neanderthals were like and what happened to them. Written in an engaging, clear and almost poetic style (the translation by Andy Klatt is first rate, his surprising use of "irregardless" on page 182 notwithstanding), this book gives us a sense of the latest understanding with an emphasis on evidence from the Sierra de Artapuerca excavation site in Spain where paleoanthropologist Professor Arsuaga is co-director. The black, white and gray illustrations by Juan Carlos Sastre nicely augment the text.
Arsuaga begins with the observation that today we exist almost alone in the sense that there are no very similar species extant, the last one being the Neanderthal in Europe. Arsuaga then traces our descent until he arrives at "Domesticated Man" in the Epilogue. His detours and asides are very interesting. I was especially pleased to learn that there are well-preserved wooden lances (or spears) used by archaic humans fully 400,000 years ago. (p. 182-183) I also found interesting his digression on what caused the extinction of the megafauna of America some 10,000 years ago (in Chapter Six, "The Great Extinction").
Primarily, though, this book is about the cultural, behavioral and conceptional abilities (as derived from the archaeological evidence) that separate humans from other living creatures, especially the Neanderthals. Arsuaga reveals his purpose on page 280: "I have been trying to summarize the evidence available concerning the thorniest problem of human evolution, the development of consciousness, which is the defining characteristic of humankind." He had asked in the Prologue on page ix, "Apart from us, has there ever been a life form on earth that was conscious of its own existence and of its place in the world?" In short his answer is yes, the Neanderthal, whom he defines as our contemporary, not as an archaic human species. (p. 278)
Arsuaga's story begins about 2.5 million years ago when Homo habilis emerged in Africa (presumably from another post-australopithecine species) with a noticeably bigger brain than the first upright walking apes. "A short while later" (geologically-speaking) Homo ergaster (probably the same as Homo erectus) appeared. Arsuaga sees Homo ergaster as the first hominid to migrate out of Africa about 1.5 million years ago, spreading to Europe and southeast Asia. Not only did these proto-humans have a significantly larger brain than Homo habilis, they had also begun "to create a social and cultural environment...that afforded them ever more independence from the physical environment," which is one of the reasons they were able to survive in diverse climates, especially in the cold of the northern latitudes.
Then about 300,000 years ago Arsuaga sees the development independently in Europe and Africa of a "second great expansion of the human brain" producing "somewhat different results." (p. 307) When modern humans again emerged out of Africa about 150,000 years ago they arrived in Europe to find the Neanderthal. The somewhat different results of their independent evolution prevented the species from merging and eventually the Neanderthal died out.
Although some authorities have emphasized competition with modern humans as the reason for the Neanderthal's demise, Arsuaga believes we need more information before we can say "in a convincing fashion" what happened. (p. 292) He does say somewhat imprecisely that the Neanderthal was "defeated by the cold" while the Cro-Magnons due to "superior technology," especially with bone awls and needles to fashion well-fitting animal skins, etc., were able to survive the glacial maximum 25,000 years ago. (p. 302) However on page 78 while noting that the Cro-Magnons had developed physical features that made them look relatively childlike--a gracile build and a "small, minimally protruding face," ("neoteny" is the technical term for this phenomenon)--Arsuaga may have tipped his hand. He observes, "Cro-Magnons must have looked cute to the Neanderthals! They may have discovered later, to their dismay, what kind of people they were dealing with, and as sweet as the Cro-Magnons may have looked, what kind of behavior they could expect."
(I had a sudden vision here of an abandoned Cro-Magnon child found by a Neanderthal family. They tenderly take the child in, nourish it and bring it up as their own. At a certain age, the child realizes that it is not Neanderthal and... Well, I'm sure there are a few science fiction stories that resolve this premise for better or for worse.)
Arsuaga's account therefore presents the Neanderthal as a co-existing species, not our ancestor, with whom there was little to no interbreeding. Nonetheless Arsuaga has great respect and affection for the Neanderthal. He writes on page 284 that "It would thrill me more than anything if I could say that I had even a drop of Neanderthal blood to connect me with those powerful Europeans of long ago." His portrait is of a "human" species different from (not less than) ourselves that had culture and ritual and self-adornment (as evidenced by, e.g., the Neanderthal's necklace found at Grotte du Renne in France), a being that had achieved consciousness, although of a sort undoubtedly different than ours. In one particular, Arsuaga argues that the fossil evidence suggests that the Neanderthal's phonetic apparatus would not have been able to produce "sounds as distinct as ours," (p. 268). This physical characteristic may have reduced its ability to develop a culture as extensive as the Cro-Magnon's which we know about in part through the cave murals that they painted in France and Spain.
What one feels strongly from Arsuaga's account is the sense of loss that the Neanderthal is no longer with us. How much we could have learned from a being that was at once much like ourselves, but intriguingly different.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “Understanding Evolution and Ourselves”
August 21, 2021
Beautifully written. I was especially intrigued by the detailed ecological information for the time period.
August 21, 2014
As part of my continuing search to learn more about Neandertals I picked up Juan Luis Arsuaga's book The Neanderthal's Necklace. I read it over the past couple days, and found it fairly enjoyable though really only about half of it was the information I was looking for. The book had been translated from the original Spanish, and I feel that there was something lost in the translation. Several paragraphs seemed a bit disorganized and it felt like it might have made more sense in the original.
The first chapters were about the history of hominids, where they started when they diverged, interesting to go over again but not all that much that was new. The first Neandertal chapter was interesting, looking at where their similarities with Cro Magnon were and where they were different, looking at how you can figure out differing brain sizes and why this is important. There was then a divergent into looking at the flora and fauna in Spain and how this had changed over time, and about the different game available during the ice age, which I admit to skipping. The last third of the book was devoted to understanding more about Neandertals. Arsuaga looked more at the life span of Neandertals and the great trouble in figuring it out from the fossil record but several ways it was being done. He also looked at language, how the Neandertals physiology affected their ability to speak. And the reasoning behind that. He also looked at their use of fire, and the fact that they buried their dead.
There was one very interesting part where he talked about Sima de la Huesos (the bone pit) which was a 300,000 year old burial pit containing over 2000 skeletal remains, from so far what is estimated to be around 30 people. (though the numbers are growing). The skeletons were taken and put into a cliff in a cave. From the excavations they determined that most of the people there died around the same time and perhaps were victims of a natural disaster. Arsuaga then went to tell the sad story of the people who had been victims of drought or some other form of starvation who wandered to the area where the caves were, with the older members dying on the way, only to have most of the group die of hunger or exhaustion when they got there.
Another interesting thing that I would have liked a lot more detail on, was talking about the necklaces found at Neandertal sites in France. Apparently these necklaces were only found at sites that had been shared with Cro Magnon. Neandertals that lived isolated from Cro Magnon never developed necklaces on their own. (Apparently France has just always been a more fashionable place to live.) The conclusion being that they borrowed the technology from the Cro Magnon. I wish more was know about the time 10,000 years that the two lived together in Europe and how much interaction they had. One of the interesting things talked about was how Cro Magnon would have appeared "Cute" to Neandertals, in that sense that babies and young animals look cute to mammals with bigger eyes and softer foreheads.
Arsuaga's conclusion seemed to be that while Neandertals had the capacity for speech and thinking they did not have the talent for story telling and abstract communication that our ancestors did, and this led to their demise. This seemed a little abstract to me, how you could accuse their lack of creativity as their downfall and how exactly they showed they were uncreative. Even if they didn't independently develop their own body decorations they did bury their dead, often with grave goods, which would seem to imply to me some level of creative thinking. A belief in something more, or at least a need for something.
The author talked about the work of Erik Trinkus a lot, apparently he's the leading expert on Neandertals at the moment, which made me wish his book had talked more about them and less about the history of evolution. But perhaps he's written another I should go and check. Still I did learn a few interesting things from this book it is one I'd recommend. Though my search to learn more continues.
The first chapters were about the history of hominids, where they started when they diverged, interesting to go over again but not all that much that was new. The first Neandertal chapter was interesting, looking at where their similarities with Cro Magnon were and where they were different, looking at how you can figure out differing brain sizes and why this is important. There was then a divergent into looking at the flora and fauna in Spain and how this had changed over time, and about the different game available during the ice age, which I admit to skipping. The last third of the book was devoted to understanding more about Neandertals. Arsuaga looked more at the life span of Neandertals and the great trouble in figuring it out from the fossil record but several ways it was being done. He also looked at language, how the Neandertals physiology affected their ability to speak. And the reasoning behind that. He also looked at their use of fire, and the fact that they buried their dead.
There was one very interesting part where he talked about Sima de la Huesos (the bone pit) which was a 300,000 year old burial pit containing over 2000 skeletal remains, from so far what is estimated to be around 30 people. (though the numbers are growing). The skeletons were taken and put into a cliff in a cave. From the excavations they determined that most of the people there died around the same time and perhaps were victims of a natural disaster. Arsuaga then went to tell the sad story of the people who had been victims of drought or some other form of starvation who wandered to the area where the caves were, with the older members dying on the way, only to have most of the group die of hunger or exhaustion when they got there.
Another interesting thing that I would have liked a lot more detail on, was talking about the necklaces found at Neandertal sites in France. Apparently these necklaces were only found at sites that had been shared with Cro Magnon. Neandertals that lived isolated from Cro Magnon never developed necklaces on their own. (Apparently France has just always been a more fashionable place to live.) The conclusion being that they borrowed the technology from the Cro Magnon. I wish more was know about the time 10,000 years that the two lived together in Europe and how much interaction they had. One of the interesting things talked about was how Cro Magnon would have appeared "Cute" to Neandertals, in that sense that babies and young animals look cute to mammals with bigger eyes and softer foreheads.
Arsuaga's conclusion seemed to be that while Neandertals had the capacity for speech and thinking they did not have the talent for story telling and abstract communication that our ancestors did, and this led to their demise. This seemed a little abstract to me, how you could accuse their lack of creativity as their downfall and how exactly they showed they were uncreative. Even if they didn't independently develop their own body decorations they did bury their dead, often with grave goods, which would seem to imply to me some level of creative thinking. A belief in something more, or at least a need for something.
The author talked about the work of Erik Trinkus a lot, apparently he's the leading expert on Neandertals at the moment, which made me wish his book had talked more about them and less about the history of evolution. But perhaps he's written another I should go and check. Still I did learn a few interesting things from this book it is one I'd recommend. Though my search to learn more continues.
February 15, 2021
The curious generalist will be interested in this rewarding introduction to palaeoanthropology by Juan Luis de Arsuaga, 'The Neanderthal's Necklace: In Search of the First Thinkers.' Its ocassionally digresses to discuss Europe's weather and geography at the time, the mammal and other fauna, tools and the bigger picture about fossils, physiognomy and handedness, etc., but this can be instructive too. After all new information about Neanderthals and our other homonid ancestral cousins comes to light almost monthly in recent times, so a book like Arsuaga's is useful not for its new information but by illustrating how the science proceeds to make discoveries and its scientists think.
The earliest Neanderthals fossils date from 200,000 to a quarter-million years ago, when mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses roamed Europe. These cousin humans buried their dead, and crafted stone tools and built fires probably using both to stampede those beasts off cliffs.
Our direct ancestors, Cro-Magnon man, probably arrived from the Middle East more recently, probably some 40,000 years ago, and spread across the continent.
So for fully ten thousand years after that, there was "...a long period of coexistence [and of] irregular contact" between the two populations (p. 287), according to Arsuaga. When an arctic cold swept across Europe around 30,000 years ago, the Neanderthals headed south. Their last known presence is in Spanish seaside caves, so those remaining members of that homonid group probably died out near the Mediterranean. The evidence is still insufficient, according to Arsuaga, to speculate about their end, although some say the Neanderthal extinction was our first genocide.
This book's methods and areas of palaeoanthropological study explore what counts as evidence in this science, the inferences drawn from what kind of data, controversies that remain and those now resolved.
As regards physiological heat loss versus retention, apparently increases in the diameter of body cylinders (limbs, etc.) mean reduced overall body surface exposed, relative to volume. Such reductions effectively lower the potential for bodily heat loss. As it happens, male Neanderthals likely averaged a robust 200 lbs of muscle, but their greater girth in thorax and (shorter) limbs adapted them well for a colder Europe. The leaner, taller, less muscular Cro-Magnon only found Europe hospitable once the climate warmed up.
While Cro-Magnon's brains sit above the face, the Neanderthals' cranium was behind it. Around the middle of the 20th century a consensus was reached that the Cro-Magnon's brains were actually slightly smaller to the Neanderthals'; before this time, they were regarding as a brutish, earlier relative to Cro-Magnon, not as contemporaneous.
Handedness--as in left- and right-handedness--is of anthropological interest as it signals a differentiation of brain function into hemispheres, the presence of which is an indicator of greater mental capacities than the brains of beings without handedness.
Yet one might ask: what kind of evidence derived from fossil remains could possibly help to determine handedness? Neanderthal teeth, it turns out, show consistently uneven wear on one side than on the other, which indicates handedness. A higher level of intelligence than was once ascribed to these homonids is thereby corroborated.
Although less conclusive, Arsuaga touches on conjectures about Neanderthal speech drawn from skull morphology. Their cranial structure would apparently prevent voicing or bar the articulation of certain vowels. Assuming Aristotle's view about the isomorphism between language and thought, it would be hard to reconcile this with Arsuaga's claim that "...we have no reason to believe Neanderthals were less intelligent than we are" (p. 91). The claim about full rationality, so that Neanderthals were, by and large, Cro-Magnon's (or our) equals, would seem to be at odds with this observation about limited speech.
Tool-use began with African predecessors of both human branches--and also occurs with bonobos, chimpanzees and some bird species. Arsuaga seems to hold that tool-making tools are what represent the key evolutionary milestone: their portability initially enlarged the radius of action from trees and vegetated areas, permitting proto-man to forage and stray. A stone carried to chisel weapons and hammer- and axe-like tools shows planned behavior, an awareness not just beyond a spatial radius but into the wider temporal compasses required by projected hunts and explorations.
Tools have further implications, such as meat-eating--which occurs only with devices to cut and chop carcasses--and an ability to make weapons to hunt live prey, rather than settle for eating carrion.
The Cro-Magnon migration to Australia forty to sixty thousand years ago is another related marker that presumes capacities beyond prizing tool-making tools. That voyage called for intellection, a capacity to plan, coordinate and undertake boat-building for a far-ranging project--which, in turn, assumes some developed form of language. Furthermore, this skill to foresee itself relates to an awareness of risk and injury and death, and the mental capacity that these imply.
Arsuaga also raises a speculative 'grandmother hypothesis,' about the inception of menopause (pp. 160-165), which posits that older women's diminished strength for breeding and child-rearing, past the end of ovulation, helps to reduce infant mortality rates at one remove. Those women, he speculates, start to help their daughters with child-care--opening a door to human longevity, which also benefits men.
The necklace in the title refers to Arsuaga's find in one Neanderthal grave. Few attribute cave art to Neanderthals, but they apparently did decorate themselves. One of the most speculative limbs our author climbs onto to support his view of Neanderthals' full humanity is that awareness of death arouses a drive to celebrate life and the present--and what better way than by decorating oneself? Poetic and perhaps intriguing, but not Arsuaga's most convincing conjecture.
The book has more than a dozen fairly good, mostly drawn illustrations, but would have gained with more, and better ones--including maps, photos, depictions based on fossil evidence of cranial and skeletal shapes, tool types, grave findings, the necklace in the title, etc.
Those who remark that 'irregardless' is unforgivable from a translator will get no pushback from me, although the single instance here is not really indicative. This book reads smoothly, not least in reflecting Arsuaga's humor, which calls for a certain skill in translation.
This fine survey of the field will reward anyone curious about this subject.
PS: Anyone interested in more about these topics should consider Ian Tattersall's fine books - including 'The World From Beginnings to 4000 BCE' and 'The Fossil Trail: How We Know What We Think We Know About Human Evolution.' Tattersall also has a clear writing style and a rigorous approach, though it may lack Arsuaga's near-avuncular tone. Still, he covers much the same material in greater detail without talking down to his readers.
The earliest Neanderthals fossils date from 200,000 to a quarter-million years ago, when mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses roamed Europe. These cousin humans buried their dead, and crafted stone tools and built fires probably using both to stampede those beasts off cliffs.
Our direct ancestors, Cro-Magnon man, probably arrived from the Middle East more recently, probably some 40,000 years ago, and spread across the continent.
So for fully ten thousand years after that, there was "...a long period of coexistence [and of] irregular contact" between the two populations (p. 287), according to Arsuaga. When an arctic cold swept across Europe around 30,000 years ago, the Neanderthals headed south. Their last known presence is in Spanish seaside caves, so those remaining members of that homonid group probably died out near the Mediterranean. The evidence is still insufficient, according to Arsuaga, to speculate about their end, although some say the Neanderthal extinction was our first genocide.
This book's methods and areas of palaeoanthropological study explore what counts as evidence in this science, the inferences drawn from what kind of data, controversies that remain and those now resolved.
As regards physiological heat loss versus retention, apparently increases in the diameter of body cylinders (limbs, etc.) mean reduced overall body surface exposed, relative to volume. Such reductions effectively lower the potential for bodily heat loss. As it happens, male Neanderthals likely averaged a robust 200 lbs of muscle, but their greater girth in thorax and (shorter) limbs adapted them well for a colder Europe. The leaner, taller, less muscular Cro-Magnon only found Europe hospitable once the climate warmed up.
While Cro-Magnon's brains sit above the face, the Neanderthals' cranium was behind it. Around the middle of the 20th century a consensus was reached that the Cro-Magnon's brains were actually slightly smaller to the Neanderthals'; before this time, they were regarding as a brutish, earlier relative to Cro-Magnon, not as contemporaneous.
Handedness--as in left- and right-handedness--is of anthropological interest as it signals a differentiation of brain function into hemispheres, the presence of which is an indicator of greater mental capacities than the brains of beings without handedness.
Yet one might ask: what kind of evidence derived from fossil remains could possibly help to determine handedness? Neanderthal teeth, it turns out, show consistently uneven wear on one side than on the other, which indicates handedness. A higher level of intelligence than was once ascribed to these homonids is thereby corroborated.
Although less conclusive, Arsuaga touches on conjectures about Neanderthal speech drawn from skull morphology. Their cranial structure would apparently prevent voicing or bar the articulation of certain vowels. Assuming Aristotle's view about the isomorphism between language and thought, it would be hard to reconcile this with Arsuaga's claim that "...we have no reason to believe Neanderthals were less intelligent than we are" (p. 91). The claim about full rationality, so that Neanderthals were, by and large, Cro-Magnon's (or our) equals, would seem to be at odds with this observation about limited speech.
Tool-use began with African predecessors of both human branches--and also occurs with bonobos, chimpanzees and some bird species. Arsuaga seems to hold that tool-making tools are what represent the key evolutionary milestone: their portability initially enlarged the radius of action from trees and vegetated areas, permitting proto-man to forage and stray. A stone carried to chisel weapons and hammer- and axe-like tools shows planned behavior, an awareness not just beyond a spatial radius but into the wider temporal compasses required by projected hunts and explorations.
Tools have further implications, such as meat-eating--which occurs only with devices to cut and chop carcasses--and an ability to make weapons to hunt live prey, rather than settle for eating carrion.
The Cro-Magnon migration to Australia forty to sixty thousand years ago is another related marker that presumes capacities beyond prizing tool-making tools. That voyage called for intellection, a capacity to plan, coordinate and undertake boat-building for a far-ranging project--which, in turn, assumes some developed form of language. Furthermore, this skill to foresee itself relates to an awareness of risk and injury and death, and the mental capacity that these imply.
Arsuaga also raises a speculative 'grandmother hypothesis,' about the inception of menopause (pp. 160-165), which posits that older women's diminished strength for breeding and child-rearing, past the end of ovulation, helps to reduce infant mortality rates at one remove. Those women, he speculates, start to help their daughters with child-care--opening a door to human longevity, which also benefits men.
The necklace in the title refers to Arsuaga's find in one Neanderthal grave. Few attribute cave art to Neanderthals, but they apparently did decorate themselves. One of the most speculative limbs our author climbs onto to support his view of Neanderthals' full humanity is that awareness of death arouses a drive to celebrate life and the present--and what better way than by decorating oneself? Poetic and perhaps intriguing, but not Arsuaga's most convincing conjecture.
The book has more than a dozen fairly good, mostly drawn illustrations, but would have gained with more, and better ones--including maps, photos, depictions based on fossil evidence of cranial and skeletal shapes, tool types, grave findings, the necklace in the title, etc.
Those who remark that 'irregardless' is unforgivable from a translator will get no pushback from me, although the single instance here is not really indicative. This book reads smoothly, not least in reflecting Arsuaga's humor, which calls for a certain skill in translation.
This fine survey of the field will reward anyone curious about this subject.
PS: Anyone interested in more about these topics should consider Ian Tattersall's fine books - including 'The World From Beginnings to 4000 BCE' and 'The Fossil Trail: How We Know What We Think We Know About Human Evolution.' Tattersall also has a clear writing style and a rigorous approach, though it may lack Arsuaga's near-avuncular tone. Still, he covers much the same material in greater detail without talking down to his readers.
November 16, 2018
Un libro fantástico, con él que aprender sobre los orígenes de la humanidad.
Me ha servido, también, para apreciar la importancia de los yacimientos arqueológicos de la Península Ibérica (que ocupa un lugar privilegiado en el mundo). Otro aspecto que destacaría es el recurso al conocimiento interdisciplinar, desde la biología, la geología, la psicología, hasta la antropología, la filosofía y la ética.
En definitiva, un libro ameno para aquel al que le gusten estos temas y que recomiendo vivamente. Seguiré leyendo sobre este tema, del mismo autor.
Me ha servido, también, para apreciar la importancia de los yacimientos arqueológicos de la Península Ibérica (que ocupa un lugar privilegiado en el mundo). Otro aspecto que destacaría es el recurso al conocimiento interdisciplinar, desde la biología, la geología, la psicología, hasta la antropología, la filosofía y la ética.
En definitiva, un libro ameno para aquel al que le gusten estos temas y que recomiendo vivamente. Seguiré leyendo sobre este tema, del mismo autor.
August 5, 2018
This book meanders. The author never gets to the point directly. An entire chapter was devoted to prehistoric landscape, and another to prehistoric animals in the Iberian peninsula. Don't buy this book. I repeat, DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. James Shreeve's Neandertal Enigma provides a much better written and compelling account.
Not convinced? Here is an excerpt:
"The insignis pine, also known as the Monterrey pine, is a species native to California, but it is very widespread in our North, above all in the Basque country. In Guizcupoa is covers 46% of the forested area and no less than 62% in Vizcaya. These expanes of non-native pines, along with large areas of other conifers and of Eucalyptus, an Australian import, should really be considered tree farms rather than forests. Their biodiversity is far less than that of any naturally occurring forest, and apart from the maximization of short-term economic gain, the latter are much more variable in every sense.
Apart from a few remnant white pine forests in Leon and Palencia, there are no native pines in the northern band of green comprising the Basque country and the Cantrabian Range west to Galicia. Some Galician forests of maritime pine, also known as pinaster pine or resin pine, may be native, but we cannot be sure because this species has been widely replanted, so much so that it now covers more area in Spain than any other pine."
The idea of 'prehistoric Iberian hunters' (referring to both Cro-magnons and neanderthals) does not appear until four pages later. The term 'Neanderthal' itself appears only after 14 pages. The author does not know which info is relevant or not, so he dumps a bunch of unnecessary details on you, and after all that effort, does not explain the link to the Neanderthals with satisfactory depth.
Not convinced? Here is an excerpt:
"The insignis pine, also known as the Monterrey pine, is a species native to California, but it is very widespread in our North, above all in the Basque country. In Guizcupoa is covers 46% of the forested area and no less than 62% in Vizcaya. These expanes of non-native pines, along with large areas of other conifers and of Eucalyptus, an Australian import, should really be considered tree farms rather than forests. Their biodiversity is far less than that of any naturally occurring forest, and apart from the maximization of short-term economic gain, the latter are much more variable in every sense.
Apart from a few remnant white pine forests in Leon and Palencia, there are no native pines in the northern band of green comprising the Basque country and the Cantrabian Range west to Galicia. Some Galician forests of maritime pine, also known as pinaster pine or resin pine, may be native, but we cannot be sure because this species has been widely replanted, so much so that it now covers more area in Spain than any other pine."
The idea of 'prehistoric Iberian hunters' (referring to both Cro-magnons and neanderthals) does not appear until four pages later. The term 'Neanderthal' itself appears only after 14 pages. The author does not know which info is relevant or not, so he dumps a bunch of unnecessary details on you, and after all that effort, does not explain the link to the Neanderthals with satisfactory depth.
January 23, 2021
Like my overall understanding of history (including pre-history), reading this book was a matter of extended periods of hazy understanding or outright confusion punctuated by moments of epiphany and high drama. Which is also what anthropology is. Trying to understand the whole timeline via a few deposits of precious bones. And if I’m being honest, the book’s sum-it-up conclusion probably should have been a required preface for me. In trying to get the big picture established, I end up oohing and ahing too long over the shading in a single bison painting deep in some Spanish cave and losing the big picture. This book was full of those glittery moments (island dwarfism of wooly mammoths who lived, in their shrunk capacity, at the same time that the pyramids were being built. Whoa!) and the author’s enthusiasms didn’t diminish the broad (like millions of years broad) scientific explanations. That’s what I geek out about. But I ultimately struggle, after reading this book, to cogently summarize its main points. I got some of them, and enough “whoa” moments to get through this sciency book (I can hear sciency people scoffing - the book’s actually pretty accessible) with considerable enjoyment. But I already feel like I need to go back to the book’s summary and give it another read. Is that the book’s fault or mine? Me, I think. Still - in great books, you have no choice but to learn. Here I had to work at it. Another culprit - this has been translated. Even really good translators lose precision and voice along the way. But that’s appropriate for the subject - trying to make a different hominid species accessible and understandable for another hominid species while recognizing that you’ll never really know the thing in its original form - but you can get a little closer via this book.
March 17, 2025
Me encantaría poder dar una opinión y una reseña mucho más detallada y extensa sobre este libro, pero no soy capaz. No soy capaz porque no entiendo suficiente de la materia, pero si que puedo decir una cosa, es que el autor de este libro disfruta escribiendo sobre esta materia, y es un muy buen acercamiento para las personas que no tenemos ni idea sobre esto.
El autor te hace un gran recorrido por varias etapas del pasado, explicando los antecesores y su forma de juntarse, así como una explicación de su cerebro y de como se puede sacar teorías científicas a raíz de los hallazgos.
Por otra parte, hace una explicación grande de lo que ahora conocemos como la península ibérica, toda la fauna y la flora y como esta fue evolucionando a lo largo de la historia.
Pero para mí, lo más de este libro, es la parte final, donde ya entra a indagar en un aspecto un tanto más filosófico.
Lo recomiendo tanto para las personas que no saben de la materia, como para las personas que si saben de la materia.
El autor te hace un gran recorrido por varias etapas del pasado, explicando los antecesores y su forma de juntarse, así como una explicación de su cerebro y de como se puede sacar teorías científicas a raíz de los hallazgos.
Por otra parte, hace una explicación grande de lo que ahora conocemos como la península ibérica, toda la fauna y la flora y como esta fue evolucionando a lo largo de la historia.
Pero para mí, lo más de este libro, es la parte final, donde ya entra a indagar en un aspecto un tanto más filosófico.
Lo recomiendo tanto para las personas que no saben de la materia, como para las personas que si saben de la materia.
July 27, 2017
It's safe to say I was expecting something a little different from this book. I think with a romanticized title like "The Neanderthal's Necklace" I was expecting something a bit lest scientifically focused. I was hoping for some unscientific conjecture and maybe even some outlandish hypothesis, but what I got was a series of facts especially in the first half of the book. I suppose also given the title I was expecting more neanderthal-focused reading and I wouldn't say they received much more attention than the other hominids. There wasn't much to savor in this read, but I blazed along and learned a few things.
October 16, 2022
Una amena lección de paleoantropología, apoyado en los registros fósiles que facilitan la interpretación de la evolución de los homínidos, destacando, lógicamente, las excavaciones en el yacimiento de Atapuerca, detalla cómo los cambios en el clima han afectado a la vegetación y la fauna en Europa, y nos relata quiénes fueron los neandertales, sus características, comportamientos y por qué desaparecieron. Algún pasaje se me hizo algo aburrido, pero en conjunto resulta un interesante ensayo de divulgación de este tema al gran público.
March 26, 2021
Un buen libro sobre los neandertales, teniendo en cuenta lo que se sabía de ellos en 1999. Ameno, interesante en lo científico y bien urdido en lo divulgativo. Se divide en capítulos, centrados cada uno en algún aspecto que influyó en la evolución y asentamiento de esa especie, particularmente en la península Ibérica. En mi caso, me han sobrado los capítulos sobre el paisaje y la fauna, pero tal vez sean interesantes para otro lector.
February 14, 2021
Magnífico libro en el que se explica la evolución de nuestra especie analizando el contexto ecológico, clima, fauna y vegetación. Juan Luis Arsuaga es un excelente narrador, un hombre lleno de sabiduría, que analiza y desmenuza los temas científicos con la habilidad de ponerlos al alcance de cualquiera.
December 8, 2024
Interesante pero algo más complejo de lo que esperaba, lo cual no dice nada malo del libro, solo de mis espectativas. Esperaba algo más estilo ensayo de divulgación, y he encontrado muchos datos y resultados de estudios bastante detallados. Me lo apunto para volver a él cuando tenga la cabeza más centrada y pueda ponerle más antención, que la merece.
July 18, 2018
Some parts of it were very confusing, grammatically. They may be in part due to it first being written in Spanish, then translated into English. He did do a pretty good job of dumbing down the science for us lay people. He also went off of some odd tangents, some interesting, some not so much.
October 8, 2021
Entiendo perfectamente porque se sigue re editando.
Me encantó leer el gran recorrido que nos cuenta Juan Luis Arsuaga para llegar al centro del libro y entenderlo con toda su importancia y matices: El collar del neandertal.
4.5
Me encantó leer el gran recorrido que nos cuenta Juan Luis Arsuaga para llegar al centro del libro y entenderlo con toda su importancia y matices: El collar del neandertal.
4.5
January 2, 2019
Interesting read.
January 22, 2020
Unnecessarily technical in nature for the lay reader.
February 9, 2022
Un completísimo ensayo sobre la evolución humana, el nacimiento de la inteligencia y el lugar de Atapuerca en la paleontología moderna.
January 16, 2025
Es una novela entretenida pero yo prefiero a Juan Luis Arsuaga paleontólogo
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March 4, 2025Un excelente libro como todos los del autor. Un remate sintético y revelador.
May 11, 2014
I got this on loan from my gfs dad. He is an emeritus of natural sciences at Utah State. It sounded interesting so he lent it to me.
It is easy to call books like this the cure for insomnia - as they are often dry and full of facts that just do not keep you turning the pages the way a good fiction book can. I can't tell you how many nights I dozed off as the author went off on another off topic rant about ancient trees in Spain.
Parts of this were surprising to me - as someone not familiar with how they class pre-human fossils. Now, the folks that do this definitely have a tough task - but to read they guess at specifics based on cc's of a cranium is unfathomable to me - that it can be called science. You couldn't get a consistent cranium cc measure on 5 random modern humans - take a look at the hat section of a place that sells hats - so why would you think you can class pre-human fossils on the same basis? To a laymen like myself - it just doesn't sound scientific.
Further guessing at when pre-humans got self awareness detracts from the credibility level this might otherwise have had. If you can't know something, guessing, and then presenting it as fact seems shaky to me.
Also the assumption that nothing else on Earth is self-aware seems kind of arrogant. The author runs down cats and dogs because some do not recognize themselves in mirrors, as not being self-aware. I know my cat recognizes herself in the mirror, because my cat attacks all other cats, but will walk right by her own reflection without regarding it at all. Cats and dogs aside, the fella writing this seems to ignore dolphins and whales as potential for cognition despite their well documented intelligence and chooses to skip over them altogether.
Also this was CHOCK FULL of what seemed to be way too much of the pre-history of Spain - for a book that was supposed to be about Neanderthals. Frankly it seemed a little like the author went on one dig, decided he wanted to write it up, and went on the fluff up 265 more pages on vaguely related topics. This certainly was not the worst thing I ever read, but it was pretty bad...
It is easy to call books like this the cure for insomnia - as they are often dry and full of facts that just do not keep you turning the pages the way a good fiction book can. I can't tell you how many nights I dozed off as the author went off on another off topic rant about ancient trees in Spain.
Parts of this were surprising to me - as someone not familiar with how they class pre-human fossils. Now, the folks that do this definitely have a tough task - but to read they guess at specifics based on cc's of a cranium is unfathomable to me - that it can be called science. You couldn't get a consistent cranium cc measure on 5 random modern humans - take a look at the hat section of a place that sells hats - so why would you think you can class pre-human fossils on the same basis? To a laymen like myself - it just doesn't sound scientific.
Further guessing at when pre-humans got self awareness detracts from the credibility level this might otherwise have had. If you can't know something, guessing, and then presenting it as fact seems shaky to me.
Also the assumption that nothing else on Earth is self-aware seems kind of arrogant. The author runs down cats and dogs because some do not recognize themselves in mirrors, as not being self-aware. I know my cat recognizes herself in the mirror, because my cat attacks all other cats, but will walk right by her own reflection without regarding it at all. Cats and dogs aside, the fella writing this seems to ignore dolphins and whales as potential for cognition despite their well documented intelligence and chooses to skip over them altogether.
Also this was CHOCK FULL of what seemed to be way too much of the pre-history of Spain - for a book that was supposed to be about Neanderthals. Frankly it seemed a little like the author went on one dig, decided he wanted to write it up, and went on the fluff up 265 more pages on vaguely related topics. This certainly was not the worst thing I ever read, but it was pretty bad...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 22, 2010
I have a big interest in pre-history and ancient history, and especially the period when pre-history slipped into ancient history. One of the factoids I was happy to see included in this book was that the last of the woolly mammoths are believed to have died out at the same time as the first pyramid in Egypt was being completed. And I guess that's sort of the problem with this book. The info I was most interested in I already happened to know, and the info I didn't know was really dull. Unless you are a scientist you probably don't wish to wade through pages and pages of scientific terminology which you will forget the very instant you read it. Also, the book is translated from the Spanish language and the translation is pretty dry as it is. There's was too much about the general climate and environment of the primitive humans' time on Earth, and probably too much about the slight variations of skeletons between ancient human species. In spite of the fact the book is entitled The Neanderthal's Necklace, there is virtually nothing about the necklace, or cave art, and frankly, very little at all about Neanderthals! I was hoping for a lot more insight about how Neanderthals regarded our ancestors, the Cro-Magnons, and what interactions between the two human species might have been like. What I remember most about the little that was actually in here about that was that Cro-Magnons regarded Neaderthals as a threat and Neaderthals probably regarded Cro-Magnons as looking very cute. The latter because the faces of adult Cro-Magnons (who were basically us) somewhat resemble baby Neaderthal faces. Insights like that though are few and far between, so if you want lots of tidbits like that you should look elsewhere. Look here only if you want pages and pages of passages like this: "I would like to propose a synthesis of the flora and fauna of Europe, dividing the continent into large-scale ecological units known as biomes, which correspond to general landscape descriptors."
July 8, 2008
I picked up this book at the library after reading an article in the New Yorker about the cro-magnon cave paintings in France. This isn't the best book for beginners, as the bulk of it contains technical discussions of cranial morphology and interglacial climate periods, but I'm just enough of a nerd to try to understand it all.
For instance, I never knew that humans did not descend from neanderthals. We evolved separately in Africa while they evolved in Europe. After humans migrated from Africa, both lived on the earth together, but did not mix genes, for almost 10,000 years until Neanderthals went extinct--for reasons explored in this book.
Now I am completely obsessed with the topic of human evolution and the human genome. I can see why people dedicate their lives to discovering what makes us human.
For instance, I never knew that humans did not descend from neanderthals. We evolved separately in Africa while they evolved in Europe. After humans migrated from Africa, both lived on the earth together, but did not mix genes, for almost 10,000 years until Neanderthals went extinct--for reasons explored in this book.
Now I am completely obsessed with the topic of human evolution and the human genome. I can see why people dedicate their lives to discovering what makes us human.
May 21, 2011
I found this book not as interesting as I had hoped. It has a great many asides, such as the development of flora in certain prehistoric areas, that I found quite boring. Although the author predicted that we would find this sort of information in only two chapters, other chapters also have more than their share of it. When starting the book, the style of Arsuaga reminded me of one of a passioned tourguide, who knows basically everything about his subject and loves to expand on his favorite topics. But after a while I found myself skipping more and more pages and wondering when it would finally become interesting again. It's not an easy topic to write a book about, no doubt, but this one couldn't really keep my interest.
February 9, 2016
This is a pretty decent book overall, giving an overview of what was going on in Europe at the time the Neanderthals lived there and what happened next, when the Homo saps showed up. He spelled out a few points that may be clear to any paleontologist, but which I'd never known before, e.g. that the Neanderthals actually evolved in Europe from a direct ancestor shared with us. He throws out a few tidbits then doesn't tell you what they mean, which was probably intended to make you buy his next book. It worked on me. There is a ton of information in here, and I'll read it again with pleasure. That's true except for the section where the author starts to make some rather odd, anthropocentric and weakly-founded speculations about the nature of human and animal consciousness.
April 29, 2013
The title is somewhat misleading as there is really not much information specific to Neanderthals in it. However, it is an interesting look at Paleolithic site on the Iberian Peninsula. Dr. Arsuaga uses easy to understand language, although this might be to the credt of the translator, Andy Klatt, and a touch of humour to make the subject palatable to laypersons. The middle section on the envirnoment of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic is rather dry however and the mind does wander if you aren't actually obsessed with paleo-environments already. Overall a good read that imparts a decent amount of information in a style easily read.
November 25, 2008
I'm a third of the way in this book and so far it's fascinating! I always like physical anthropology, so that may be why, but I think it's very well-written (though he does digress here and there, he admits when he's doing it).
All said and done, I lost interest in this book three quarters of the way through. It sort of lost its focus, I think (or I did!.
All said and done, I lost interest in this book three quarters of the way through. It sort of lost its focus, I think (or I did!.
January 6, 2008
Definitely a fascinating read for those interested in early humans. Written by a paleoanthropologist who knows his subject quite well, although can be dry at times. There is also a lot of "Iberian peninsula" specific information.
March 29, 2016
En este libro, Arsuaga se centra en nuestra especie (ya extinta) más cercana, los Neandertales. Hace un análisis muy inmteresante, desmitificando muchas cuestiones que nos han presentado de una especie tan cercana a nosotros.
Puntuación: 9
Puntuación: 9
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