NEANDERTHALS DID NOT DISAPPEAR → HE IS IN OUR DNA

DIMITRA PAPAGIANNI — MICHAEL A. MORSE — THE NEANDERTHALS REDISCOVERED — 2013–2015

This small book is fundamental and it brings up ideas that force us to reconsider what we may have too easily accepted or remembered. Research in the archaeological field is going so fast that we may feel some kind of vertigo in front of this constant reevaluation. The book is concentrated on Neanderthals and at times that makes it Europe-centered since the main first idea is that, for the authors, Neanderthals have evolved and matured in Europe to go back to the Middle East later on. That will explain some of my critical remarks because this centration is deeply frustrating. For one example, though the authors actually state migration from Black Africa to Northern Africa, as for Homo Sapiens (there was another migration out of Black Africa as for Homo Erectus), the authors keep the formula “Out of Africa” which is definitely wrong. But we’ll come back to it later.

The authors state that archaeology today cannot work but with numerous scientists from numerous fields, and they quote (p. 15) “geologists, archaeologists, geneticists…