Book 39 of 2025
Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes
5 stars
This is the best sort of nonfiction, incredibly engaging and moving. I had no idea how much we know about Neanderthals, and in such an incredible level of detail. We can trace specific objects that Neanderthals crafted, reshaped, and carried across long distances. There are very well-preserved gravesites that imply intentional burials. We know that they ate a lot of tortoises and probably collected (and possibly modified) seashells for their aesthetic qualities. There's a cave in France where Neanderthals methodically broke stalagmites to form a series of large concentric rings, for purposes unknown.
But best of all is the way Sykes uses the science to weave more speculative passages that imagine what Neanderthals might have experienced physically and emotionally. It gave me a real hankering to read some of the Neanderthal fiction that's out there.
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