This makes me think the book may be aimed for readers who are a little more academically in-depth on Neanderthals than I am. My only other criticism is that there were a few chapters that got into more detail about Neanderthal tools, diet, and migration patterns than what I can really retain. It really does paint a picture of Neanderthal life, but what I’m learning is that they were much less afraid of butchering animal carcasses than I am. I could tell that Sykes enjoyed explicitly depicting scenes of Neanderthals hunting, down to the dirty details of slicing through fat (she really likes the word “fat” in imagery) to sucking marrow from bones. I’m sure this is merely personal preference, but at times the imagery in these scenes made me squeamish. This brings me to one of my only criticisms of the book. One of my favorite ways that Sykes does this is her introduction to each chapter, poetically written scenes that force you to see Neanderthals as alive, active, and warm, not long-dead fossils found among rubble.
She wants you to be able to picture yourself there with them, knapping a tool from flint, hunting horses, or sleeping around the fire, tucked in furs.
She wants to help you shed your idea of them as wholly other and instead see them as capable, thinking people worthy of our admiration. Sykes does not only want to bestow you with facts about Neanderthal migration or tool-making techniques. What sets Kindred apart from its predecessors is that it is told not through the lens of discoveries, names, and numbers, but of emotionally understanding who Neanderthals were. Published in the fall of 2020, Kindred is the latest in a long line of books about Neanderthals, but anyone who has read Kindred knows that it is not like the others.
If a book can be “hot” in the world of paleoanthropology, then Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art is that book.
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