The Humans Who Went Extinct: Why Neanderthals died out and we survived [Paperback]

This was an exciting read that had an element of 'can't put down'.
The author is very good in explaining the politics that lie behind the received wisdom of hominid development and pointing out that the evidence is very scanty and has been worked too hard, often with the intention of placing a new find in direct lineage as an important step towards modern humans. This is a very valid and important revision. His technique of defining habitats and then showing that it is highly likely that humans who lived in a particular habitat would expand to fill all of it across continents is illuminating. The explanation of why Neanderthals went extinct is lucid and compelling, essentially they are overadapted for a woodland ecology and the ice ages destroyed them as their habitat failed. Yet he protests too much that modern man is just luckier than the Neanderthals. In similar rapid change situations described latter modern humans adapt better than Neanderthals and that is not just luck. He does also try to have his cake and eat it. The Neanderthals in Gorham's cave are not living like the hidebound ambush predators he describes earlier.
Similarly the explanation of the modern gracile body developing in the Steppe Tundra region fails to explain why the population left behind in Africa has equally gracile bodies.

I'd have given the book a 5* but for the rubbish chapter at the end. Having talked with great authority about 4 million years Finlayson then quite misunderstands modernity and how it is not like any form of the past. His theory is that conservatives who are highly adapted fail when rapid change occurs whereas 'innovators' living poor lives on the margins adapt better. Unfortunately for this view the centre of our culture is occupied by commercial and scientific innovators who will lead the response to change. Mankind is now only meaningful as a societal animal largely liberated from immediate physical constraints. It is the information, organisation and will of our collective brains that matters.

The Humans Who Went Extinct: Why Neanderthals died out and we survived

This is the best publication I have read on the subject for years in an excellent hard cover publication. An original perspective on early Ice Age humans and their Neanderthal cousins and some quite innovative ideas on why we survived the intolerable Ice age conditions in Eurasia between 20000 to 50000 years ago and possibly why the Neanderthal, a better adapted human for the conditions, didnt. What I liked best was the Jared Diamond style perspective of looking at the human creature from a biological or even Zoological viewpoint without the natural biases regarding the perceived intellectual superiority of modern humans. There is no suggestion here that we had some superiority advantage over our cousins. Rather that good fortune and opportunism gave modern humans an advantage that could have just as easily benefitted Neanderthals, had their circumstances permitted.

I would strongly suggest to anyone wanting to expand their awareness of these poorly understood and under rated people to have a look at this one. Its worth the journey.

Bearfax

An addendum September 2011 given recent discoveries:

Having read some other reviews there is still I believe this concept of superiority many of us have of the modern human creature. I would suggest reading some of Jared Diamonds works to gain balance

The Neandertal people, though genetically different in some ways, suffered as I see it, a similar plight to the Australian Aboriginal people. Just as intelligent as other peoples in Europe, Asia and Africa, these people became somewhat isolated and had to adapt with the technology they brought with them 50-60000 years ago (though some came later) to unfamiliar and hostile environments, just as the Neandertal had to in Eurasia.

As with the Australian Aboriginal, their adaption to a hostile environment with the technology they had, led a serious reduction in population per area of ground to survive. And they apparently adapted very well to the environment they inherited over time. But just as the Australian Aborigine was restricted by a limited population, lack of agricultural plant life and beasts of burden, seriously diminished any technological advancements, the Neandertal's faced similar types of limitations, other humans did not have to cope with, in their extreme conditions. When the Europeans came to Australia, as with the humans to Ice Age Euarasia, they came better prepared through tens of thousands of years of cultural development and improved technology.

Europeans and Asians have had the advantage of exchange of ideas over the Eurasian continent during the Holocene, as well as agricultural foods and beasts of burden and therefore a greater population per area of ground. This has allowed significant technological advancement. Therefore when Europeans came to Australia to settle, the indigenous population were overwhelmed by a superior technology, a continuous influx of migration and of course new diseases that decimated the existing population.

A parallel surely exists with the influx of a technologically advanced African humanity into Eurasia 40-50000 years ago. Though they had to also adapt to the new conditions they had developped culturally and technologically in such a manner that they were eventually better able to survive and flourish. Just as with the Australian Aboriginal, the Neandertal could not compete and found their feeding grounds increasingly encroached upon by a more numerous and technologically more sophisticated people.

But the caveat here is that, as with the Austraian Aborigine, it was not intelligence that was lacking and led to the Neandertal's disappearance, but rather isolation from the greater numbers of humans, who had had greater opportunity to develop their technology. And as is evident now, just as with the Australian Aborigine, they didnt disappear, they merely became absorbed within the migrant population through intermarriage and interbreeding.

This is the perfect introduction for the general reader to this much misunderstood branch of our evolutionary cousins - the Neanderthals, covering what they looked like, where they came from & the various theories over their extinction.

The author has organised the volume is sensible & easily digestible chapters. He puts the entire context in place before walking us through some of the accepted doctrines & challenging them.

At the same time, he challenges some of the preconceptions we have, mostly which have developed from movies, TV & even newspapers.
There are a few illustrations & maps but I would have liked more to help break up the text.

One of the most startling elements of this book for the general reader is that it challenges the myth of our own superiority. The tradition version is that we survived & prospered as we are the better suited more flexible branch but you leave this book less certain of this & questioning some of the `facts' you have learnt. Maybe chance had a much larger role than we thought? It is a humbling thought.

All in all, a well-produced & put together general science book - the perfect holiday read if you fancy something different but no less addictive.