I can’t get enough of them, it seems.
The Humans Who Went Extinct is all about how Homo sapiens weren’t really super-smart, badass warriors who simply emerged from Africa one day and took Europe by storm, wiping out all the Neanderthals with a casual sort of indifference and establishing themselves as highest on the food chain.
Not that I viewed Homo sapiens like that anyway. I have read Clan of the Cave Bear, after all. (Local writer reference! Woo hoo!) But that seems to be the general sort of idea. That’s the impression I have from learning this stuff in school. The Neanderthals were an inferior form of man, and therefore did not survive. (Especially depressing was that “Shiny Happy People” by REM was playing while reading this part of it. Massive irony there, somehow.)
The book is amazing. A bit dry in places, but still fascinating. I just really want more maps. I love his description of the river that became a lake that became the Mediterranean Sea. I just want to see what it looked like and my imagination fails me sometimes. Sad but true.
It’s just another example of how we really exist simply because of sheer luck and evolutionary whimsy. I’m resigned to it now. My confidence as a higher creature of thought and intellect is completely shot. I’ve got the evolutionary ego equivalence of a sea slug. And they could probably survive through a nuclear holocaust, too. Bastards.