May 2021

Neanderthals

My recent thinking about bones, about a type of affecting sadness they have, and beauty, has been transported to a new level of empathy for an older species. I will never again use their name as a descriptor for some crassnik, knuckle-dragging hoon. Archaeologist/prehistorian Rebecca Wragg Sykes’s book about Neanderthals, Kindred, is at the poetic end of science writing and the way she rounds off her subject in the last few paragraphs had me tearing up, precisely as predicted in the Claire Cameron quote she uses to evoke the living relationship we still have with these people.

Sykes invites us to let our guard down, to ‘Push against the impossible, and perform a quantum shift back in time to the Pleistocene. Close your eyes and pick a world: a grassy plain under a cool winter sun; a warm forest track, soft loam underfoot; or a now-sunken rocky coast, gulls’ cries salting the air. Now listen, step forward, she’s here:’

When you’re close enough, press the skin of your palm against hers. Feel her heat. The same blood runs under the surface of your skin. Take a breath for courage, raise your chin, and look into her eyes. Be careful, because your knees will weaken. Tears will come to your eyes and you will be filled with an overwhelming urge to sob. This is because you are human. *

Kindred. Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art
Rebecca Wragg Sykes
Bloomsbury 2020

*
Quote
Prologue, The Last Neanderthal
Claire Cameron