Book review
Kindred Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art
Review by Zak Kizer
Accessible to both casual readers and amateur anthropologists alike, this book gives perhaps the most complete picture of Neanderthals within the current scientific consensus.
Human evolution is popularly imagined as a straight line, with a series of increasingly bipedal hominids serving as “missing links” between the apes and modern Homo Sapiens. However, science has proven that humanity’s family tree is anything but linear. Several of the prehistoric human species were not our direct ancestors but rather our cousins, sharing a common heritage and walking the earth contemporaneously.
Chief among our relatives were the Neanderthals, who have fascinated both scientists and the public since their discovery in the 1850s. However, this interest has long been hindered by inaccurate portrayals: Neanderthals have often been depicted as dumb, animalistic brutes. Rebecca Wragg Sykes successfully pierces over a century of mischaracterisation, presenting an accessible and insightful look at a species that rivaled our forebears in both physical ability and intelligence.
Sykes’s work succeeds in large part because she is able to explain scientific theories and methodologies for lay audiences. She provides a thorough debunking of inaccurate conceptions of archaic humans while still acknowledging that many questions about our past remain unanswered. Equally importantly, Sykes comprehensively explains why these myths persist, from their roots in Victorian prejudices and cultural taboos to click-bait “Neander-news” in the modern day. By contextualising how Neanderthals are understood in both scientific and cultural contexts, Sykes dismantles common but mistaken beliefs more effectively.
The second strength of this book is the humanisation of its extinct subjects, not just through science but emotion as well. Sykes begins by cleverly framing the act of reading her book as a (one-sided) family reunion, casting the Neanderthals as long-lost “brothers and sisters” who are an integral part of the “family portrait” of human evolution.
Sykes further relates her readers to their prehistoric cousins through authorial intrusion, sometimes directly addressing the reader. For example, when discussing the differences in anatomy between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens, Sykes observes, “you’re your own handy anatomical model,” and instructs the reader to inspect their body for seemingly minor features that Neanderthals lacked. These simple yet effective emotional appeals breathe life into what might have read as dry scientific analysis, especially to everyday readers.
Sykes wisely avoids allowing her demystification of Neanderthals to turn into romanticism. In recent years, scholars have been divided on the nature of ancient hunter-gatherers, with some asserting they lived in “peaceful paradises” and others convinced they were “exceptionally cruel and violent”, as Yuval Noah Harari wrote in his 2015 best-seller, Sapiens.
Both extremes have seeped into the popular consciousness, and neither accounts for the nuances of primitive existence. In particular, the former plays into the idea of the “noble savage”, an idealised and reductive concept of indigenous peoples, extinct or otherwise. Sykes humanises these ancient humans while recounting the hardships of Neanderthal life, from low population density promoting inbreeding to evidence of ceremonial cannibalism in their burial rites.
Sykes’s Kindred is a vivid and meticulously researched mosaic of humanity’s long-lost relatives. In an age when regular new findings spark continued interest and commercial DNA tests allow consumers to see their prehistoric genetic heritage, our fascination with Neanderthals is unlikely to go away soon. However, as public interest does not always beget better public understanding, the work of authors like Sykes is more important than ever. Accessible to both casual readers and amateur anthropologists alike, this book gives perhaps the most complete picture possible of Neanderthals within the current scientific consensus, a charming snapshot of our evolving understanding of the distant past.
Zak Kizer is a graduate of Ball State University, Indiana, USA, and has taught oral communication at Iowa Lakes Community College. He has previously reviewed books on the politics and history of science for JCOM — Journal of Science Communication and The Soviet & Post-Soviet Review.
