The Neandertals: Of Skeletons, Scientists, and Scandal [Paperback]

Erik Trinkaus (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0679732993 | ISBN-13: 978-0679732990 | Publication Date: March 15, 1994

To one nineteenth-century scholar, their fierce, ridged brows were evidence of a "moral darkness" that set them irrevocably apart from human beings. Some commentators accused them of cannibalism. Yet by the 1970s the Neandertals were being hailed as "the first flower people" and praised for their apparent compassion and religious piety.

The story of how scientists could come to such divergent conclusions about a set of bones unearthed in Germany in 1856 unfolds with irresistible detail in this enthralling book. Even as The Neandertals assesses the identity, kinship, and character of our possible ancestors, it casts a wry eye on the modern Homo sapiens who have embraced or disavowed them and illuminates the peculiar way in which even science is shaped by human needs and biases.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As a fierce debate rages around the question of whether Neanderthals are the ancestors of modern people, Erik Trinkaus and Pat Shipman begin their book by taking us back to 1856, when the first known remains of a Neanderthal were found in Germany. The authors provide a fascinating history of the science surrounding these mysterious people and the legends that have grown up around them. The Neandertals (most scientists have dropped the H from the name, but popular culture has not yet followed suit) is rich with stories and characters. It reveals much of what we know about the prehistoric past (the last Neanderthal probably died 25,000 years ago), as well as how contemporary biases influence the way we interpret this history.

Review

"A remarkable account of humankind, both ancient and modern, told with clarity, precision, and the narrative pull of a good novel." -- Jean Auel, Washington Post Book World



"Sketching in the lives of hundred of scientists and their discoveries, conclusions, blunders, and foibles...The Neandertals could stand as a textbook for a course in the history of science...Gripping." -- The New York Times Book Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 454 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (March 15, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679732993
• ISBN-13: 978-0679732990
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,637,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paleontology and Politics, April 15, 1999

By 

Robert Carlberg (Seattle) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Neandertals: Of Skeletons, Scientists, and Scandal (Paperback)

This is a fascinating and very well-written account of the discovery of the first Neandertal skeletons, and the shock waves they caused (and are still causing) throughout science.

The Victorian mania for collecting, cataloging and naming natural specimens led to the formulation of the Great Tree of Life, or Chain of Being, arranged from the lowliest organisms in an orderly progression up to "the pinnacle of creation, Man" -- or more accurately, white Anglo-Saxon Englishmen in waist-coats.

The discovery of proto-human remains in Germany in 1856 threw this 'orderliness' of nature into disarray. Did not The Bible state that everything was created all-at-once in perfect harmony? How then could an obviously human skeleton -- but equally obviously not that of a modern Englishman -- have come to rest in the soil beneath their feet?

The ripples from these discoveries were to penetrate the farthest reaches of scientific endeavor, as man began to comprehend geologic time (as opposed to the Biblical timeframe), repeated mass extinctions (as opposed to Christian creation myths) and mankind's own humble origins, starkly laid out on the table before them.

With the help of a certain Mr. Charles A. Darwin, whose own ideas on the mutability of species he had been harboring privately for 20 years, science was soon to face a new conception of itself, basing theory on evidence and logic rather than religious texts and teachings. It is a revolution which is still very much on-going today.

The authors are to be commended for making a potentially dry and technical subject come alive, with the intrigues, power struggles, vanity, hubris and anguish of the revolution ably depicted.