How to Think Like a Neandertal

 

At the beginning of the first chapter of How to Think Like a Neandertal, the authors Thomas Wynn and Frederick L. Coolidge (2012) explain their spelling choice of ‘Neandertal’ (instead of ‘Neanderthal’), so I use that spelling in this review. [Both spellings are correct and are pronounced the same.]

But aside from the spelling choice, I do not like the title of the book. First, it sounds like the book will be about how to emulate the thinking process of Neandertals (similar to the books, How to Think Like Leonardo DaVinci, Like Sherlock Holmes, Like a Roman Emperor, Like a Computer Scientist, etc.). And this book is nothing like that. Second, the title doesn’t fit the valid, academic focus of the book.

Instead, this book concentrates on building a picture of the mental life of Neandertals, drawing on evidence from archaeology and psychology. The authors are professors at the University of Colorado. Wynn teaches Anthropology and Coolidge is a professor of Psychology. Together they focus their specialty area on assessing and analyzing Neandertal cognition.

They explain in their Preface, “This is the task we have taken on: to provide an account of the mental life of Neandertals, to the extent that it can be reconstructed from the fossil and archaeological remains. … Our approach uses established concepts in cognitive science to interpret paleoanthropological remains.”

When they follow this framework, their conclusions are both fascinating and convincing. However, they often deviate from what can be reconstructed from the archaeological remains or from using established concepts in cognitive science.

With a focus on food remains and butchered animals, they reconstruct thought processes required for hunting and for preparing food. Their analysis of flint- and spear-making also presents a credible case for Neandertal cognitive ability, concluding that their excellent skills were developed carefully and handed down through generations. But because their types of spears and stone-knapping techniques did not change or evolve over time, the authors conclude that Neandertals were not innovative – a characteristic that would have put them at a disadvantage after the arrival of Homo Sapiens, and could have contributed to their extinction.

However, in other chapters their “evidence” is either weak or lacking. In the chapter To Sleep, Perchance to Dream, the authors speculate about the Neandertal sleep cycle and the types of dreams they might have had. They provide a lot of background information about how sleep cycles changed from when hominids slept in trees to when they slept on the ground, but Neandertals never slept in trees, so this material seems irrelevant. They speculate that Neandertals had similar sleep patterns to Homo Sapiens, but even if they did, this doesn’t necessarily mean they had similar types of dreams (and there is certainly no support for that). And none of this is related to or dependent on the difference between tree and ground sleeping.

There were a few assumptions based on information that has subsequently been proven false. In the chapter discussing possible Neandertal symbolism, they claim that Neandertals didn’t paint or produce any kind of art, but evidence of that has since been found. Other assumptions are based on their contention that “Neandertals did not venture deep into caves,” but that has also been found to be false. (See my reviews of Kindred and The Smart Neanderthal for more information.)

A final, perhaps minor, point is that in referring to the geneticist who won a Nobel Prize for his work on the Neandertal genome, they consistently spell his name “Svente” Pääbo instead of Svante Pääbo. Considering their extensive notes at the end of each chapter, this seems an odd mistake.

Despite some of the unrealistic conclusions, the authors present very interesting ideas about how Neandertals might have thought about the world and their place in it. And using their overall conclusions as support, they end with a believable theory of why the Neandertals disappeared from the archaeological record.