Hailed by Dan Agin in The Huffington Post as
"fascinating...electrifying...an apocalyptic vision that puts a chill
down one's back," this provocative book offers a new perspective on the
extinction of the Neanderthals. Today, we think of Neanderthals as crude
and clumsy, easily driven to extinction by the lithe, smart humans who
came out of Africa some 100,000 years ago. But Clive Finlayson reminds
us that the Neanderthals were another kind of human, and their culture
was not so very different from that of our own ancestors. In this book,
he presents a wider view of the events that led to the migration of the
moderns into Europe, what might have happened during the contact between
the two populations, and what finally drove the Neanderthals to
extinction. It is a view that considers climate, ecology, and migrations
of populations, as well as culture and interaction. His conclusion is
that the destiny of the Neanderthals was sealed by ecological
factors--in short, a major climate
change--and it was a matter of luck that we survived while they
perished.