The Neandertal Enigma - Solving the Mystery of Modern Human Origins (Published by Avon Books, Copyright 1995 by James Shreeve, ISBN:0-380-72881-8) doesn't quite live up to either its title or it's subtitle. The Neandertal Enigma is a book more devoted to the species that ultimately outperformed and outlasted Homo sapiens neanderthalensis: Homo sapiens sapiens, or more familiarly, modern humans.
The book doesn't actually solve the mystery of modern human origins either. What The Neandertal Enigma does do is explore and examine the myriad conflicting scientific positions on the evolution of Homo sapiens sapiens and the evidence for and against the various arguments, in an entertaining, enlightening and engaging fashion.
Out of Africa
After familiarizing the reader with the players in the piece, namely Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, homo sapiens sapiens, homo erectus, homo habilis and a few other homonid species, Shreeve introduces one of the central controversies in the modern study of human origin: The Eve Hypothesis.
The Eve Hypothesis, supported by a wide ranging study of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) gathered from all over the globe, suggests that every person alive on the planet today can trace their origin to a single female who lived and died in Africa somewhere between 200,000 and 140,000 years ago.
Not surprisingly, such a specific claim for something so fundamental to the origin of the species has had a polarizing effect on the scientific community. Shreeve interviews two of the leading lights in the field, one from either side, and reminds the reader throughout the book that the jury is still out on The Eve Hypothesis.
Mixed up with the concept of a mitochondrial Eve is the notion that humanity arose and exploded out of the African continent. While it is largely accepted that modern humans migrated out of Africa and populated the world from that central point, Shreeve's investigations uncover scientists who dispute that widely held notion.
In actuality, Shreeve's book shows that the only consensus that science can count on in the field of homonid evolution is that there is no consensus.
Hypothesis after Hypothesis
Shreeve travels the world, visiting archeologists, paleontologists and scientists of every stripe, at dig sites, in coffee shops and in the hallowed halls of academia. What he finds is that the basic facts of homonid evolution are rarely in doubt (leaving aside occasional disputes over dating methods) but the interpretations of those facts are as varied as the personalities that do the interpreting. Fossils, nesting sites and stone tools all find themselves under the microscope both literally and figuratively, used as evidence both for and against various arguments about homonid evolution.
The Hose, the Rope and the Tree
There is a widely used parable of three blind men examining an elephant. The man at the trunk announces that it is a hose, the man at the tail declares that it is a rope and the man at the leg asserts that the creature is a tree. None have the whole picture and because of that lack of perspective they cannot accurately interpret the evidence of their remaining senses.
In a way, modern man is as blind as the three men in the story, lacking any way to see a whole picture, no matter how many artifacts and fossils we examine. As a result, the modern view of the lives of our distant ancestors and the lives of the homonids we ultimately replaced is a constantly shifting one.
Shreeve opens The Neandertal Enigma in a coffee shop where he is shown a jawbone of a Homo sapiens Neandertalensis which had been dated at approximately 30,000 years old, making it the jawbone of one of the last Neandertals in history. By the time he had finished writing the book, that same jawbone had been more accurately dated at some 28,000 years old, bringing the Neandertal even closer to modern man in time.
Shreeve's conclusion in The Neandertal Enigma is that as with most debates, the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle, between the extremes, but he concedes that as with Eve, the jury is still decidedly out.
James Richardson - James Richardson is a freelance writer of fiction and non-fiction. He is the resident critic and recap writer of the television show LOST ...
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