The Humans Who Went Extinct : Why Neanderthals Died Out and We Survived ISBN: 9780191571176 Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / Oxford University Press, Incorporated Digital rights:Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time Subjects: Science: Geology; Science: Biology/ Natural History; Science;
A cave on Gibraltar 28,000 years ago was one of the final homes of the Neanderthals. Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar Museum, uses his knowledge of that cave and others like it to explore the differences and similarities between modern humans and Neanderthals, and how the differences led to our surviving them. Presenting a host of data, he draws a single conclusion: modern humans weren't brighter, stronger or more capable than Neanderthals. Rather, we were luckier. Scattered around Europe, Neanderthals probably succumbed to various factors, from disease to drastic climate change-changes that led to an environment more friendly to Homo sapiens. Finlayson does a superb job of describing the factors behind the expansion of the genus Homo and its diversification into various species, of which only Homo sapiens survives today. He also offers a powerful critique of those who theorize differently about the expansion of our species with very little data. Finally, he challenges us to rethink early human migration around the globe, arguing that the pattern we see is simply a modest expansion, generation by generation, as environmental conditions permitted. In his hands the links between climate and evolutionary change are strikingly clear. 5 b&w illus. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Clive Finlayson is Director of the Gibraltar Museum and adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. He is an evolutionary ecologist with a DPhil from the University of Oxford. For the past fifteen years he has combined his ecological work with birds with leading an international multidisciplinary project that has focused on excavations of the Pleistocene caves in Gibraltar, especially Gorham's Cave, recently confirmed as the site of the last Neanderthals on the planet. His previous publication was Neanderthals and Modern Humans: An Ecological and Evolutionary Perspective (CUP, 2004).
