Neandertales

Since their discovery more than 160 years ago, Neanderthals have gone from being seen as the losers of the human family tree to being considered top-notch hominids. In Neanderthals, Rebecca Wragg Sykes uses her experience in cutting-edge Paleolithic research to share new insights about our distant cousins, tearing down clichés that represented them as ragged brutes across frozen wastelands. Here Neanderthals reveal themselves to us as curious and intelligent humans, knowledgeable about their world, with technological creativity and the ability to adapt to the environment. They spread over vast territories of tundra and steppe, but they also roamed the forests and crossed the Mediterranean. And, above all, they managed to survive for more than 300,000 years, going through times of colossal climatic disturbances. In an age when our species does not face great threats, we are obsessed with what makes us special. But a large part of what defines us was also in Neanderthals, and their DNA is still within us. Organization, cooperation, altruism, craftsmanship, aesthetic sense... perhaps even the desire for transcendence beyond death.