The Neaderthal's Necklace, Juan Luis Arsuaga

Juan Luis Arsuaga
The Neanderthal's Necklace
In Search of the First Thinkers
Translated by Andy Klatt

"[Arsuaga] certainly knows his stuff, so we get the necessary evolutionary and environmental background to this complex story, all well told for the general reader." —New Scientist

"I would like the reader to shiver with recognition …" —Juan Luis Arsuaga, from the prologue

One of the great mysteries of science comes to life from Europe's leading paleontologist. Who were the Neanderthals? What is their relation to humans? How did they live, and why did they suddenly disappear? In this tale of life and death and the awakening of human awareness, Dr. Juan Luis Arsuaga takes us back in time to depict the dramatic struggle between two clashing species. Only one is to survive.

The story is set 40,000 years ago, the embryonic epoch of humanity. Pygmy elephants populated the Mediterranean; saber-toothed tigers and woolly rhinoceroses roamed the plains of the Iberian Peninsula; reindeer ranged from modern France to the farthest reaches of Siberia. And our ancestors, Cro-Magnons, migrated into northern Europe, a region populated by Neanderthals. Squat and hairy, Neanderthals were better equipped for the severely cold climate. Yet while Cro-Magnons lacked their cousins' immense strength, they made up for it with intelligence, adaptability, and — perhaps most crucial — the use of language. Ultimately, Cro-Magnons' cognitive abilities overwhelmed the Neanderthals' physical prowess.

Yet Arsuaga, the co-director of the world's largest Neanderthal dig, uses a seashell necklace made by Neanderthals, which at the time of its discovery was a great surprise to science, to suggest our hominid relatives were far less primitive than we would like to believe. His compassion for this extinct, human species is palpable. He shows us that Neanderthals were not a lesser race, but a divergent branch on the evolutionary tree driven to extinction by our ancestors.

Juan Luis Arsuaga is a professor at the University of Madrid, a visiting professor at the University College of London, and co-director at Sierra de Atapuerca, the largest Neanderthal dig in the world. His work there, and the discovery of Homo antecessor, has transformed the history of human evolution and won him the Premio Príncipe de Asturias 1997. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) in 2002.

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