How To Think Like a Neandertal

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Thomas Wynn (Professor of Archeology, Professor of Archeology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs) Frederick L. Coolidge (Professor of Psychology, Professor of Psychology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs)

How To Think Like a Neandertal

Name: How To Think Like a Neandertal
Price: 53.95 AUD
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ISBN: 9780199329229

Thomas Wynn (Professor of Archeology, Professor of Archeology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs), Frederick L. Coolidge (Professor of Psychology, Professor of Psychology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs)

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English

Oxford University Press Inc
15 September 2013

Prehistoric archaeology; Popular science; Medical anthropology

There have been many books, movies, and even TV commercials featuring Neandertals--some serious, some comical. But what was it really like to be a Neandertal? How were their lives similar to or different from ours? In How to Think Like a Neandertal, archaeologist Thomas Wynn and psychologist Frederick L. Coolidge team up to provide a brilliant account of the mental life of Neandertals, drawing on the most recent fossil and archaeological remains. Indeed, some Neandertal remains are not fossilized, allowing scientists to recover samples of their genes--one specimen had the gene for red hair and, more provocatively, all had a gene called FOXP2, which is thought to be related to speech. Given the differences between their faces and ours, their voices probably sounded a bit different, and the range of consonants and vowels they could generate might have been different. But they could talk, and they had a large (perhaps huge) vocabulary--words for places, routes, techniques, individuals, and emotions. Extensive archaeological remains of stone tools and living sites (and, yes, they did often live in caves) indicate that Neandertals relied on complex technical procedures and spent most of their lives in small family groups. The authors sift the evidence that Neandertals had a symbolic culture--looking at their treatment of corpses, the use of fire, and possible body coloring--and conclude that they probably did not have a sense of the supernatural. The book explores the brutal nature of their lives, especially in northwestern Europe, where men and women with spears hunted together for mammoths and wooly rhinoceroses. They were pain tolerant, very likely taciturn, and not easy to excite. Wynn and Coolidge offer here an eye-opening portrait of Neandertals, painting a remarkable picture of these long-vanished people and providing insight, as they go along, into our own minds and culture.

By: Thomas Wynn (Professor of Archeology Professor of Archeology University of Colorado at Colorado Springs), Frederick L. Coolidge (Professor of Psychology, Professor of Psychology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs)
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 155mm, Spine: 15mm
Weight: 318g
ISBN: 9780199329229
ISBN 10: 0199329222
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 15 September 2013
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Frederick Coolidge, Professor of Psychology, University of ColoradoThomas Wynn, Professor of Archeology, University of Colorado

Reviews for How To Think Like a Neandertal

An intriguing look at fellow beings who seem to have been 'inexact mirrors of ourselves' - Kirkus In How to Think Like a Neandertal, archaeologist Thomas Wynn and psychologist Frederick Coolidge provide one of the most rounded portraits yet of a fossil human. The book covers familiar areas - diet, symbolism and language - but also includes innovative assessments of Neanderthals' capacity to tell jokes, and even speculations on what they might have dreamed about. - Clive Gamble, Nature Engaging reconstruction of Neandertal life... - The New York Times ...How to Think Like a Neandertal is interesting and engaging. Written for a lay audience, it should nonetheless be of great interest to professionals in anthropology, evolutionary biology, and psychology. I also highly recommend it to anyone who wonders what it would have been like to live alongside another intelligent being who shared the designation homo. - PsycCRITIQUES