Customer Reviews

Neandertal (Spanish Edition)

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This is a splendid read available at airport book stores and guaranteed both to keep you turning the pages and to get you to think about cross cultural relations and alternative views of history. It suggests that there could be small groups of Neanderthals still surviving in Central Asia and that they could have characteristics different from ours. It notes that anthropologists have concluded that Neanderthal brains were actually larger rather than smaller than ours. It goes on to speculate that this could have been because they had ways of communicating which were dramatically different than our own and which had both positive and negative side effects in competing with Cro-Magnons (us) when we showed up.

The story is well told both as adventure and as scientific mystery and you will find yourself reflecting on cross-cultural relationships, strategies for survival, the nature of scientific investigations and the tragedy of life in new ways.

I read this book a few years ago and remember thinking that it would make a great movie, just based on the action alone. But beyond that, it also has a great emotional element and a good dollop of scientific speculation - in short, I believe it has broad appeal.

Anyone with even a passing interest in paleoanthropology would probably love this book. Beyond speculating about Neandertal life and habits, it attempts to answer the big question: Why our "cousins" became extinct. I though the author's solution is very imaginative - certainly gives you something to think about.