The Smart Neanderthal, Clive Finlayson
The Smart Neanderthal, Clive Finlayson
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The Smart Neanderthal
Bird Catching, Cave Art & The Cognitive Revolution

Author: Clive Finlayson

Narrator: James Cameron Stewart

Unabridged: 6 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/01/2019


Synopsis

Since the late 1980s the dominant theory of human origins has been that a "cognitive revolution" (c. 50,000 years ago) led to the advent of our species, Homo sapiens. As a result of this revolution our species spread and eventually replaced all existing archaic Homo species, ultimately leading to the superiority of modern humans. Or so we thought.

As Clive Finlayson explains, the latest advances in genetics prove that there was significant interbreeding between Modern Humans and the Neanderthals. All non-Africans today carry some Neanderthal genes. We have also discovered aspects of Neanderthal behavior that indicate that they were not cognitively inferior to modern humans, as we once thought, and in fact had their own rituals and art. Finlayson, who is at the forefront of this research, recounts the discoveries of his team, providing evidence that Neanderthals caught birds of prey, and used their feathers for symbolic purposes. There is also evidence that Neanderthals practiced other forms of art, as the recently discovered engravings in Gorham's Cave Gibraltar indicate.

Linking all the recent evidence, The Smart Neanderthal casts a new light on the Neanderthals and the "Cognitive Revolution." Finlayson overturns classic narratives of human origins, and raises important questions about who we really are.

About Clive Finlayson

Clive Finlayson is an evolutionary biologist whose research areas focus on birds and the behavioral ecology of Neanderthals. He has been the Director of Excavations at Neanderthal sites in Gibraltar since 1989, and has been involved in major recent discoveries, including that of the first known engraving made by a Neanderthal. A regular contributor to BBC News Online (Science and Environment), he is also the author of several books, including The Improbable Primate and The Humans Who Went Extinct.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Richard on April 15, 2019

Clive Finlayson is especially fascinated by two things, Neanderthals and birds. Since 1989, he has been excavating caves in Gibraltar, on the north shore of the Mediterranean, where Neanderthals lived from 127,000 to 32,000 years ago. Gibraltar is the place where the last Neanderthals tearfully bid......more

Goodreads review by Peter on March 16, 2019

The Smart Neanderthal by Clive Finlayson This is an interesting and odd book. The author, Clive Finlayson, is an anthropologist whose base of operations is Gibraltar. Finlayson has two scientific passions, bird-watching and Neanderthals. In this book, he brings the two together as a way of providing i......more

Goodreads review by Jo on January 30, 2023

3.5 stars rounded up (As an audio book, 2.5 stars only) This was a book very much out of my comfort zone not only in that it was nonfiction of which I read a limited amount, not only about history which I read even less, but about prehistory, a topic I am completely unversed in. Add to that I was lis......more

Goodreads review by Terence on October 24, 2019

In The Smart Neanderthal, Clive Finlayson argues for a re-evaluation of how we perceive modern humans vis-à-vis the other hominins who shared the planet with them until relatively recently, particularly the Neanderthal. He sets out to show that Neanderthal exhibited many of the same behaviors that,......more

Goodreads review by Hazel on July 11, 2019

An interesting, if disorganized and self-indulgent, look at Neanderthal natural history by a bird watcher in a rather forced combination of a bird-watching journal and research notes. The Neanderthals probably didn't care how many modern human beings had sighted a specific bird when they roasted it......more