There have been many books, movies, and even TV commercials
featuring Neandertals-some serious, some comical. But what was it
really like to be a Neandertal? How were their lives similar to or
different from ours? In How to Think Like a Neandertal,
archaeologist Thomas Wynn and psychologist Frederick L. Coolidge
team up to provide a brilliant account of the mental life of
Neandertals, drawing on the most recent fossil and archaeological
remains. Indeed, some Neandertal remains are not fossilized,
allowing scientists to recover samples of their genes-one specimen
had the gene for red hair and, more provocatively, all had a gene
called FOXP2, which is thought to be related to speech. Given the
differences between their faces and ours, their voices probably
sounded a bit different, and the range of consonants and vowels
they could generate might have been different. But they could talk,
and they had a large (perhaps huge) vocabulary-words for places,
routes, techniques, individuals, and emotions. Extensive
archaeological remains of stone tools and living sites (and, yes,
they did often live in caves) indicate that Neandertals relied on
complex technical procedures and spent most of their lives in small
family groups. The authors sift the evidence that Neandertals had a
symbolic culture-looking at their treatment of corpses, the use of
fire, and possible body coloring-and conclude that they probably
did not have a sense of the supernatural. The book explores the
brutal nature of their lives, especially in northwestern Europe,
where men and women with spears hunted together for mammoths and
wooly rhinoceroses. They were pain tolerant, very likely taciturn,
and not easy to excite. Wynn and Coolidge offer here an eye-opening
portrait of Neandertals, painting a remarkable picture of these
long-vanished people and providing insight, as they go along, into
our own minds and culture.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
