How To Think Like a Neandertal

Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Science, Biological Sciences, Evolution, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Anthropology
Cover of the book How To Think Like a Neandertal by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge, Oxford University Press, USA
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge ISBN: 9780199912339
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Publication: October 27, 2011
Imprint: Oxford University Press Language: English
Author: Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
ISBN: 9780199912339
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Publication: October 27, 2011
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Language: English

There have been many books, movies, and even TV commercials featuring Neandertals--some serious, some comical. But what was it really like to be a Neandertal? How were their lives similar to or different from ours? In How to Think Like a Neandertal, archaeologist Thomas Wynn and psychologist Frederick L. Coolidge team up to provide a brilliant account of the mental life of Neandertals, drawing on the most recent fossil and archaeological remains. Indeed, some Neandertal remains are not fossilized, allowing scientists to recover samples of their genes--one specimen had the gene for red hair and, more provocatively, all had a gene called FOXP2, which is thought to be related to speech. Given the differences between their faces and ours, their voices probably sounded a bit different, and the range of consonants and vowels they could generate might have been different. But they could talk, and they had a large (perhaps huge) vocabulary--words for places, routes, techniques, individuals, and emotions. Extensive archaeological remains of stone tools and living sites (and, yes, they did often live in caves) indicate that Neandertals relied on complex technical procedures and spent most of their lives in small family groups. The authors sift the evidence that Neandertals had a symbolic culture--looking at their treatment of corpses, the use of fire, and possible body coloring--and conclude that they probably did not have a sense of the supernatural. The book explores the brutal nature of their lives, especially in northwestern Europe, where men and women with spears hunted together for mammoths and wooly rhinoceroses. They were pain tolerant, very likely taciturn, and not easy to excite. Wynn and Coolidge offer here an eye-opening portrait of Neandertals, painting a remarkable picture of these long-vanished people and providing insight, as they go along, into our own minds and culture.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

There have been many books, movies, and even TV commercials featuring Neandertals--some serious, some comical. But what was it really like to be a Neandertal? How were their lives similar to or different from ours? In How to Think Like a Neandertal, archaeologist Thomas Wynn and psychologist Frederick L. Coolidge team up to provide a brilliant account of the mental life of Neandertals, drawing on the most recent fossil and archaeological remains. Indeed, some Neandertal remains are not fossilized, allowing scientists to recover samples of their genes--one specimen had the gene for red hair and, more provocatively, all had a gene called FOXP2, which is thought to be related to speech. Given the differences between their faces and ours, their voices probably sounded a bit different, and the range of consonants and vowels they could generate might have been different. But they could talk, and they had a large (perhaps huge) vocabulary--words for places, routes, techniques, individuals, and emotions. Extensive archaeological remains of stone tools and living sites (and, yes, they did often live in caves) indicate that Neandertals relied on complex technical procedures and spent most of their lives in small family groups. The authors sift the evidence that Neandertals had a symbolic culture--looking at their treatment of corpses, the use of fire, and possible body coloring--and conclude that they probably did not have a sense of the supernatural. The book explores the brutal nature of their lives, especially in northwestern Europe, where men and women with spears hunted together for mammoths and wooly rhinoceroses. They were pain tolerant, very likely taciturn, and not easy to excite. Wynn and Coolidge offer here an eye-opening portrait of Neandertals, painting a remarkable picture of these long-vanished people and providing insight, as they go along, into our own minds and culture.

More books from Oxford University Press, USA

Cover of the book The Complete Sophocles : Volume I: The Theban Plays by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
Cover of the book Murder of a Medici Princess by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
Cover of the book China in the 21st Century:What Everyone Needs to Know by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
Cover of the book Buried In Treasures : Help For Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, And Hoarding by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
Cover of the book Fundamentalism And American Culture by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
Cover of the book The New American Militarism : How Americans Are Seduced By War by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
Cover of the book Beethoven by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
Cover of the book Quantum Enigma : Physics Encounters Consciousness by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
Cover of the book Freedom from Fear:The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
Cover of the book The Complete Euripides:Volume V: Medea and Other Plays by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
Cover of the book The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
Cover of the book China: Fragile Superpower : How China's Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful Rise by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
Cover of the book The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
Cover of the book The Body in Pain:The Making and Unmaking of the World by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
Cover of the book Tiny Terror:Why Truman Capote (Almost) Wrote Answered Prayers by Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy