Neanderthal.

Neanderthal. It is a truism that accounts of the future say most about thepresent. There is, then, a satisfying symmetry in the fact thatnarratives of the past do the same. In this review I shall consider whatthree novels of prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to say about us, because ultimately that'sthe subject we're most interested in. This requires some cautionbecause, as Stephen Gould says in introducing Dance of the Tiger Dance of the Tiger is a short novel, published in English in 1980, by palaeontologist Bj?rn Kurt��n that deals with the interaction between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. , whenthe speculations of scientists 'are presented in the professionalliterature . . . they are taken too seriously', only to reappear inpopular literature as 'man the killer ape' or the'innate' superiority of men over women. Hence, this articlewill also suggest that, given the way the Neanderthal debate has beenconducted, the novel is perhaps the only appropriate place forspeculation about human origins.The late Bjorn Kurten knew the pitfalls of just-so stories, quotingSimpson's observation that if the sabre-toothed tiger'sextinction was explained by difficulty in eating with such large teeth,'the animals took 40 million years to starve to death'! In hisepilogue Kurten concludes that his is 'only one model out of manypossible ones'. What, then, is the value of such accounts beyondpure entertainment? I suggest that, if nothing else, they tell us aboutthe intellectual context in which they are written.ContextH.G. Wells (1958 [1921]) saw 'Modern' humans as the'first pilgrim fathers of mankind' sweeping away the savage'Grisly folk'. (Wells, who died 50 years ago this year, was ofcourse a student of T.H. Huxley, which explains his'optimism'.) Writing of the late 20th century has taken a lesssanguine view of the triumph of Mankind, and of the three works underreview Golding's The Inheritors is by far the best written. It isright, but also significant, that it won him the Nobel prize Nobel Prize,award given for outstanding achievement in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, peace, or literature. The awards were established by the will of Alfred Nobel, who left a fund to provide annual prizes in the five areas listed above. forliterature; first published in 1955, the novel is a powerful metaphorfor intolerance and misunderstanding between peoples - of innocencedestroyed by selfishness and cruelty. His account must be seen both inthe light of then contemporary science - clearly influenced byBoule's 'shambling ape' reconstruction of Neanderthals -and the political context of the Holocaust and the Cold War.Golding's Neanderthals are naive and ultimately uncomprehendingvictims of the more knowing 'Moderns'.Kurten deserves the second prize; his novel is well written andevocative, especially, as Gould remarks, in his description of a battlebetween two sabre-tooths and a family of mammoth. Most importantlyKurten playfully inverts old assumptions, quite logically making the'European' Neanderthals white and their immigrant adversariesblack, whilst making the conversation of Neanderthals excessively (andamusingly) polite as a counter to their overtly aggressive appearance.Like Golding, Kurten continues the theme of intolerance and racism, buthe mixes this with a more subtle and complex understanding of the data,such as they are. Unfortunately the plot falls apart towards the endwith a lurch into the improbable, to which I shall return in a moment.I suggest you don't bother with John Darnton's Neanderthal:even if, as the cover says 'THEIR TIME HAS COME' his certainlyhasn't! This book, although well researched, is airport bookstallfodder, compared by the blurb blurb?n.A brief publicity notice, as on a book jacket.[Coined by Gelett Burgess (1866-1951), American humorist.]blurb v. to Crichton's Jurassic Park. Darnton,a New York Times journalist, has taken Myra Shackley's (1980) oddidea that the Yeti yeti:see abominable snowman. (Young, Entrepreneurial technocraTI) Coined around the turn of the century during the dot-com bubble, there is also a "yetti" variation, which means "young, entrepreneurial, tech-based twenty-something." are actually the Neanderthals, alive and well andliving in the Himalayas, and built a rather weak adventure story roundit. Having modern anthropologists meet Neanderthals in a kind ofNgorongoro crater is a twist on the usual encounter, but Darnton'scharacterization is poor and the plot is flabby - the heroine iscontinually 'slipping out of her panties'. Somewhere he hasalso picked up the idea that human 'uniqueness' relies onpowers of deception, whilst his suggestion that Neanderthals weretelepathic te��lep��a��thy?n.Communication through means other than the senses, as by the exercise of an occult power.tel clearly places Neanderthal in the New Age, even though theyhave not discovered pyramid power or ley lines.Science: fictionJoking apart, novelists have produced some original accounts of whatMilford Wolpoff (1989: 98) once called 'a scientific rendering ofthe story of Cain'. Indeed, at times, 'the scientific andpopular worlds seem set on separate paths, with little exchange'(Stringer & Gamble 1993: 30; although see Gamble 1996 for adifferent view). Both Kurten and Darnton evoke despotic, totalitarianfigures as the force majeure behind their plots, and it is this seeminganachronism in a hunter-gatherer society that makes them iraplausible.Golding, perhaps more wisely, allows a more equivocal guilt - the'Modern' humans are as frightened of the 'trolls' asthe latter are uncomprehending. But why should literature use theNeanderthal debate to discuss race, cruelty and despotism despotism,government by an absolute ruler unchecked by effective constitutional limits to his power. In Greek usage, a despot was ruler of a household and master of its slaves. , and why havethese concerns spilled over into scientific rhetoric? (cf. Tattersall tat��ter��sallalso Tat��ter��sall ?n.1. A pattern of dark lines forming squares on a light background.2. Cloth woven or printed with this pattern.adj. 1995; Gamble 1996). Why is this such a controversial topic? Even thescientific community has its sensitivities; my (1991) CurrentAnthropology article was originally to have been called The ghost ofCain, but the editor objected. Is it, then, inappropriate to make thecomparison between myth and prehistory?Anatomically modern humansAlthough there has been some softening of positions in the last threeto four years, the 'Out of Africa' scenario for human originsis effectively the only game in town (Gamble 1996; Mellars 1996;Tattersall 1995). The dating and morphology of the fossils allow nospace for anything more than some intermixing between Neanderthal and'Modern', with the eventual extinction of the former. Recentfinds from Zafarraya Cave in Spain (dated c. 27,000 BP) seem to confirmthis beyond question. Thus, controversy has shifted to the intriguingencounter between 'our' ancestors and an entirely differenttype of human (e.g. Gould's introduction; Graves 1991; Tattersall1995), and this is the basis of the race metaphor. More fundamentally,however, few have asked what it actually means when the currentorthodoxy talks about 'anatomically modern humans', for as TimIngold (1995: 208) has observed, we do not talk of anatomically modernelephants!The problem is that, as Ingold goes on to say, anatomical modernityis taken as a rubicon between evolution and history; between anatomical,biological change and cultural change. The Cro-Magnons were reputedly re��put��ed?adj.Generally supposed to be such. See Synonyms at supposed.re��puted��ly adv.Adv. 1. 'just like us', but without the benefits of education and thewelfare state. This culture rubicon makes a convenient gulf, not justfor palaeo-anthropologists but also for practitioners of the variouspost-modernisms (by which I mean post-structuralism, modernism,processualism, feminism, industrialism in��dus��tri��al��ism?n.An economic and social system based on the development of large-scale industries and marked by the production of large quantities of inexpensive manufactured goods and the concentration of employment in urban factories. etc.) (Graves-Brown 1996a). Thus,according to Julian Thomas (1991: 16), 'few would argue that thehuman capacities for culture and consciousness did not emerge throughthe process of natural selection', but 'evolution andadaptation are redundant concepts when dealing with the interpretationof purposive pur��po��sive?adj.1. Having or serving a purpose.2. Purposeful: purposive behavior.pur human actions'. Yet 'pluralisers', as Geertz(1994: 150) says, have been caught by the paradox that 'theso-called "psychic unity of mankind" ha[s] remained abackground article of faith.' Although they accept our onenessunder the skin, critical theorists are uncomfortable with biologybecause it stresses materiality rather than intellectual constructs.Hence post-modernist students of later prehistory are content to leavethe Palaeolithic well alone and accept the convenient fiction of an'anatomically modern human' which in fact they owe to theirscientistic enemies (Graves-Brown 1996a).Spin doctorsMeanwhile, the battle over anatomically modern human'uniqueness' goes on, and here the data are treated to quiteshameless spin doctoring. Thus, whilst there is overwhelming evidencethat Neanderthals did bury their dead, a campaign of propaganda has, forexample, questioned the findings of Roy Solecki and ArletteLeroi-Gourhan with respect to the Shanidar 'flower burial'(Solecki 1971), whilst talking up the Krapina cannibals. In the lattercase, it never ceases to amaze me that cannibalism cannibalism(kăn`ĭbəlĭzəm)[Span. caníbal, referring to the Carib], eating of human flesh by other humans. is evinced as a signof Neanderthal primitivism primitivism,in art, the style of works of self-trained artists who develop their talents in a fanciful and fresh manner, as in the paintings of Henri Rousseau and Grandma Moses. when we have near-contemporary ethnographicexamples. Meanwhile, the intellectual contortions to explain awayNeanderthal burial seem excruciating; Upper Palaeolithic burial,according to Stringer & Gamble (1993: 160), 'indicates adeliberate custom' whereas 'the Neanderthal practice . . . wasmore akin simply to corpse disposal'. Have they ever seen a moderncrematorium cre��ma��to��ri��um?n. pl. cre��ma��to��ri��ums or cre��ma��to��ri��aA furnace or establishment for the incineration of corpses.crematoriumNounpl -riums or ?Clearly the Neanderthal debate has raised passions on all sides, andthis explains both its persistence and popularity as a topic forfiction. But why is this? I suggest that in spite of nearly 150 years ofDarwinism, we are still trying to distance ourselves from'nature' and from other species. We cannot deny that we are'descended from' apes and hence, instead, we insist thatsometime around 30,000 years ago something called 'culture'took over from biology and effectively separated us from the nastybusiness of evolution. Sometimes, according to Dawkins or Ardrey, thebeast within us takes over and then we have wars and atrocities. Butthis is because contemporary humans do not live under 'biologicalconditions' (Barash 1978: 311). If we were all stillhunter-gatherers then everything would be OK and we would be living inharmony "Living in Harmony" is an episode of the 1967-68 television series The Prisoner. It differs from most other episodes of the series in that it does not begin with the show's standard opening credits sequence. with our genetic imperatives.I will not deny my own part in this debate, and now acknowledge myfault. Like the authors of the three novels under review, I haveaccepted the race metaphor and hence the analysis of the Neanderthal:'Modern' encounter in these terms. By so doing, we simplyshift the focus. For even the advocates of the current orthodoxy arecontent to allow Neanderthals some place in the human story, and it isgenerally convenient to give them leave to be honorary humans (Stringer& Gamble 1993: 219):'[Neanderthals] and the early moderns have a place in ourprehistory, whether or not they were our actual lineal That which comes in a line, particularly a direct line, as from parent to child or grandparent to grandchild. LINEAL. That which comes in a line. Lineal consanguinity is that which subsists between persons, one of whom is descended in a direct line from the other. ancestors'or for a more florid florid/flor��id/ (flor��id)1. in full bloom; occurring in fully developed form.2. having a bright red color.flor��idadj.Of a bright red or ruddy color. account (Trinkaus & Shipman ship��man?n.1. A sailor.2. A shipmaster. 1993: 419);"They were themselves; they were Neanderthals - one of the moredistinctive, successful, and intriguing groups of humans that everenriched our family history'Hooray!!It all boils down to who is in and whom out of the human club, but inmy view, the question is not whether Neanderthals were human or not, butwhether it actually matters. If we did encounter Neanderthals in someremote fastness of the Himalayas, and if they were not members of ourspecies, would we see them as good subjects for medical research andspare-parts surgery? Probably. The irony is that humanistic attempts toincorporate Neanderthals into the human race mask the bigger issue ofour continuing quest to set ourselves apart from nature. The appropriatemetaphor is not racism but speciesism. According to Keith Tester (1991:195) 'Animals are only made the site of moral worries to the extentthat they are useful in establishing social definitions of the properlyhuman'. This remark could apply equally to accounts of theNeanderthals. But what Tester is doing, like so many others, is to offera purely taxonomic analysis to a problem that spans the culture-naturecontinuum (see Graves-Brown 1994). 'Only society invests animalsand the natural world with moral meaning, because only society issufficiently free to be able to carry out that investment' (Tester1991: 196). Wrong! because in the above hypothetical example, this givesus licence to abuse any creature provided we can demonstrate that it isnot 'human' on the basis of self-definitions of what is and isnot human! This is where the Nazis came in.Radical DarwinismOpponents of animal rights and palaeoanthropologists alike continue aproject of damage limitation begun by Archbishop Wilberforce. Faced withthe radically materialist claims put forward by Wallace and Darwin, oursociety is still trying to wriggle out of the fact that we are not godsand that we do not have dominion over nature. For to acknowledge thesefacts would be to accept the hubris HubrisAn arrogance due to excessive pride and an insolence toward others. A classic character flaw of a trader or investor. of our exploitation of this planetand the imminence im��mi��nence?n.1. The quality or condition of being about to occur.2. Something about to occur.Noun 1. of our self-immolation. If the extinction of theNeanderthals can serve as a metaphor for anything, it should be for allthose other species we have wiped out, and those that we are destroyingnow. Including ourselves!Together with palaeoanthropologists, advocates of post-modernisms areequally keen to pursue the 'humanist' project in defininghumanity through culture alone: as something which makes us'purposive' in a way that animals are not and which separatesus from the physicality of existence. For to accept the visceral natureof experience is to give up the idealist view that our world is of ourown making, to accept that, after all, our physical bodies leave usearthbound. The ideal of culture seems to promise the death of theultimate author: it frees humanity from determinisms biological ordivine. But at the same time it dislocates us from reality, reiteratingtired distinctions between culture and nature, human and animal, mindand body.At the end of the 20th century we have still not accepted that we arejust one species among many. Indeed, we still cling to a Linnean notionof the species as a fixed and bounded entity because this fits with theproject of maintaining our distance from the other 'Other'.However, the species concept is as fluid and hence slippery as the raceor ethnic group (Graves-Brown 1996b). It is, as Hull (1984) says, ahistorical entity for there can be no distinction between evolution andwhat we call history (Ingold 1995); elephants have as much history ashumans, in the sense that their 'evolution' is as much theproduct of their 'purposive actions' as our own. As StephenTyler has said, writing up is writing off, and so far the elephants havenot been able to put their side of the story. Maybe it is as well thatthey have kept their peace; the histories we write for ourselves arestill self-justificatory just-so stories and here we should applaudGolding, Kurten and Darnton for admitting that what they write isfiction. Others have made the most outrageous claims about our origins,inventing tales full of 'sex strikes', 'menstrualenvy', 'territorial imperatives' etc., and have beentaken seriously! In the end I think Darnton is right about our powers ofdeception; it is just that they are exercised to greatest effect uponourselves.ReferencesBARASH, D. 1978 Sociobiology and behaviour. London: Heinemann.GAMBLE, C.S. 1996. Society and mind, Nature 380(6570): 119.GEERTZ, C. 1994. Local knowledge. 2nd edition. London: Fontana.GRAVES, P.M. 1991. New models and metaphors for the Neanderthaldebate. Current Anthropology 32(5): 513-42.GRAVES-BROWN, P.M. 1994. The Barges matrix. A serendipitous ser��en��dip��i��ty?n. pl. ser��en��dip��i��ties1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.3. An instance of making such a discovery. bibliographical narrative, Online Archaeology:http://avebury.arch.soton.ac.uk/Journal/Graves/graves.html1996a. Ape and essence Ape and Essence is a novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1948. It is set in a dystopia, similar to Brave New World, Huxley's more famous work. 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A reply to Steve Mithen, Proceedingsof the Prehistoric Society 57(2): 15-20.TRINKAUS, E. & P. SHIPMAN. 1993. The Neanderthals: changing theimage of mankind. London: Cape.WELLS, H.G. 1958. (1921). 'The grisly folk', in H.G. Wells,Selected Short Stories: 258-99. Harmondsworth: Penguin.WOLPOFF, M. 1989. Multi-regional evolution: the fossil alternative toEden, in P. Mellars & C.B. Stringer, The human revolution:behavioural and biological perspectives on the origin of modern humans:62-198. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Edinburgh University Press is a university publisher that is part of the University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland. External linksEdinburgh University Press .