Ludovic Slimak (Allen Lane)
FOR most of our existence, Homo sapiens shared the planet with other types of human: the mysterious Denisovans, the diminutive 鈥渉辞产产颈迟鈥� Homo floresiensis, the Neanderthals and perhaps others. But for the past 40,000 years, after our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, died out, we have been alone.
鈥淭he Neanderthal no longer exists, except in our minds,鈥� writes Ludovic Slimak in The Naked Neanderthal, published to great acclaim in France last year and now available in English. This statement is particularly true for him as a palaeoanthropologist, based at the University of Toulouse in France, who has spent much of the past 30 years in caves haunted by Neanderthal remains, investigating their rituals of life and death. What can this tell us about these extinct intelligences and their view of the world?
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The existence of this extinct species was first revealed in 1856, with the discovery of a skeleton in Germany. Boasting robust physiques and pronounced brow ridges, the Neanderthals, as we came to call them, were depicted as brutish thugs with vastly inferior intellectual capabilities to ours.
This perception has radically changed since the discovery that they used complex techniques, such as making adhesive from birch tar, as well as apparently burying their dead and creating cave art. In this narrative, you probably wouldn鈥檛 spot a Neanderthal on the subway if they wore a suit and a hat.
But for Slimak, this rehabilitated view is equally problematic, based not on true understanding, but on a construct that says more about us than them. 鈥淲e have sought projections of ourselves in the Neanderthals,鈥� he writes, arguing that their consciousness was fundamentally different from our own.
Surprisingly, Slimak is sceptical of the evidence that Neanderthals created cave art and symbolic objects such as necklaces of shell beads. Likewise, while he has no doubt they buried their dead, he argues this won鈥檛 help us understand them, as we know that empathy and sorrow for the deceased is shared by some other animal species.
Instead, he finds unique insights through an exhaustive excavation he conducted of a rock shelter near Mount Ventoux in France 鈥� a Rosetta Stone of the Neanderthal world. The excavation turned up some astonishing discoveries in a 12-metre-deep patch of soil dating from between 80,000 and 123,000 years ago, which records events in a time of great climatic change.
Trapped in the sand were the well-preserved remains of hunts 鈥� there were 61 different prey species, from lions to turtles. Neanderthals not only hunted dangerous beasts but also ones with more complex behaviours, which entailed very different hunting strategies. This, says Slimak, contradicts the idea that Neanderthals couldn鈥檛 adapt to target different prey in the face of climate change 鈥� one proposed explanation of their demise.
Most fascinating was evidence in a layer of soil deep in the cave, where there is no sunlight. Here, the fossil bones came from deer carried in by Neanderthal hunters. But while most hunts include young and old, male and female prey in equal measure, this layer contained only mature male deer, with a large number of skulls with antlers attached 鈥� possible hunting trophies. For Slimak, this points to a Neanderthal ritual: the systematic targeting of the trickiest specimens to kill, perhaps as a rite of passage.
Equally fascinating is evidence that may suggest cannibalism and signs of flesh stripping. But did the Neanderthals eat their own kind out of desperation during famine, or was it a ritualised handling of the bodies of the dead?
Like so many aspects of the lives of Neanderthals, this is hotly contested. As is the cause of their extinction: having rejected a failure to adapt under climate change, Slimak places the blame firmly on the superior weaponry of Homo sapiens.
The Naked Neanderthal sets out to free this extinct species of the prejudices we have imposed 鈥� and, as such, is a resounding success. As Slimak says: 鈥淭here is no objective, logical, rational reason why these populations, which evolved independently for hundreds of millennia, should have developed ways of being in the world which are the same as ours.鈥�
