The Last Neanderthal

5.0 out of 5 stars

Compelling and original,

May 6, 2017

I found The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron to be a highly original and compelling read. Once begun, I couldn't put it down. Other reviewers (and the Amazon listing) have synopsized the story, so I will not.

The main Neanderthal character, Girl, has such rich and exotic thoughts, feelings and sensory observations. This really makes the character and shows the author's breadth of research and imagination. This part of the story line is truly amazing.

The modern story line is also very rich, full of the nuances of scientific and university life issues, woman's issues of professional vs family, pregnancy and motherhood.

High recommended. I am very excited to have found a new (to me) author; I have just downloaded the author's previous book, The Bear.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the loan of a time-constrained advance reader's e-copy without obligation.

Paleoarchaeologist Dr. Rosemund Gale, working on a dig in present day France, makes an astonishing discovery. She unearths fossilized bones of a Neanderthal girl and a modern day man, facing each other, and buried in the same strata. Radioactive dating indicates that the Neanderthal and the Homo Sapien co-existed, perhaps forming a loving relationship. Rose had discovered a Neanderthal girl 40,000 years after her death. Taking a leave of absence from her tenure track teaching post, Rose intended to make sure she published and was credited with the find.

Neanderthal culture was dwindling. Living in matriarchal groups with a Big Mother at the helm, sons were expected to bring home a breeding female chosen at the yearly spring fish run held at the confluence of the river forks. Daughters were expected to live outside their family by winning a place as Big Mother in a different family. The journey to the meeting place could occur only after the ice melted. Girl's current family consisted of Big Mother, Him, Bent and Runt. Tragedy struck when Bent was killed by a bison while trying to protect Girl during a bison attack. Soon after, Girl and Him, both hormonal, mate. A pregnant Girl is cast out by big Mother, the decision maker, and told she must travel alone to the fish run. Big Mother hopes Girl's resourcefulness and determination will enable her to arrive safely. Girl's survivalist skills are stretched to the limit as she travels to her destination.

Girl's story was very compelling. The low density family lived in a hut tucked in a granite cliff and protected from predators. They slept as one body, curled around each other to stay warm. Their covers were bison hides. By violating the taboo of incest, Girl was forced to search for safety and sustenance.

The parallel story of Rose's pregnancy and her determination to continue to head the archeological dig was not as engaging. Rose's single mindedness made her overbearing, not sympathetic.

Author Claire Cameron's extensive research turned "The Last Neanderthal" into a well crafted tome. The latest DNA genome has determined that up to four percent of the current European and Asian populations have Neanderthal DNA. Cameron's novel describes a connection, perhaps a love connection between two intelligent species. A good read.

Thank you Little, Brown and Company and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "The Last Neanderthal".

From the moment that I heard about this book, I knew that I had to read it. I’m fascinated by the Neanderthals so a fiction story built around them sounded perfect for me! And it was so good. I was worried it would be too focused on the science part of the story but it has such a great balance. The story centers around two women – one who is a member of the last Neanderthal family 40,000 years ago and one who is an archaeologist who is working to excavate new Neanderthal artifacts. The stories of these women just captivated me. The way that Claire Cameron creates the world of the Neanderthal – the detailed aspects of their lives, although mostly fiction, was so well done and captivating to me. I enjoyed seeing what Clair Cameron imagined life to be for these Neanderthals and how they made their way through life.

One of the things that I think stands out most to me is the characterization of motherhood from both women’s perspectives. The experience, the sacrifices, the challenges. I found these views into motherhood to be very realistic and raw. Unflinchingly honest, frank. Motherhood is in no way easy but many novels suggest that it’s all love and rainbows. I really appreciated the realistic perspective that this novel gives to motherhood and it’s overwhelming love and fear.

All in all, I found this to be a very moving novel that gave me a new perspective on humanity and how it changes (and doesn’t) over time. It’s a very interesting look at two very different yet closely connected women. I loved the interesting view into the lives of the Neanderthal population. Overall, this is a fantastic novel that I definitely recommend due to it being very unique and thought provoking. It’s a moving novel that I suspect will stick with me for some time.

What a wonderful book! Haunting and poignant, I loved every page.

New DNA evidence shows that what we used to believe about the Neanderthal is wrong. They weren't apelike brutes with little intelligence, language, or culture. They were much more like humans than was previously believed. Also, the idea that they were wiped out by competition with humans has also been proven untrue. The proof is in our DNA. Most people with European or Asian backgrounds have 1 - 4% Neanderthal DNA in their genetic makeup. It appears that not only did the Neanderthal interact with humans, they often mated and may have lived together in family units.
The Last Neanderthal is a fictional account of what these interactions between humans and Neanderthals might have been like. It is based on the latest research. I found it fascinating to learn how these hominids lived. I had no idea they had language and were so intelligent. They created and used sophisticated tools, and there is evidence of primitive art and rituals.
The plot follows the lives of two women with much in common, even though they lived 40,000 years apart. One of the women is a human archaeologist who finds the remains of the other woman, who is a Neanderthal. The archaeologist discovers and excavates the site where the Neanderthal body was found, and finds surprising evidence. Both women are so fully fleshed out and likable that it is impossible not to become attached to them and empathize with their predicaments.

A quote from the archaeologist:
"Why does life exist? I’d been plagued by doubt about my purpose for much of my life. The day I found her, a Neanderthal long buried in the dirt, I was relieved of it. As an archaeologist, I knew that the essential difference between something living and something dead is heat. Only living things are able to capture energy from the land and use it, but somehow, more than forty thousand years after her death, that Neanderthal was able to capture me. I felt as though her big hand reached through time to grab me by my grubby T-shirt and pull my nose to the spot where she lay. When I found her, I finally knew why I was alive. I wanted to learn her secrets."

I read this book in one day, all day, neglecting other tasks. I was so engrossed in it that I could not stop myself from reading on and on. It's difficult to convey how exciting yet touching this story is. I found it beautiful and inspiring. I highly recommend this book.

I received this ARC from netgalley.com in exchange for a review.

The story begins with Girl and the last family of Neanderthals roams the earth. When her family dies, Girl is left to care for Runt a young boy with unknown history that her family adopted.

Rose, running an archaeological dig finds the bones of a Neanderthal laying beside and facing the bones of a Homo sapien. When Rose discovers knows is pregnant, she endeavors to complete her work at the dig before she is forced to surrender the discovery to her less knowledgeable co-worker.

The story alternates between Neanderthal Girl and modern day Rose. Across time, both women share the triumphs and defeats of the female sex.

3☆

I do love a good dual timeline narrative, and the subject matter of this book felt different from the usual in the genre. I wasn't sure if the Neanderthal's story, given she has a vocabulary of less than half a dozen words, would make for riveting material. However, the author assuaged all of my doubts with such a strong voice for Girl, who is clearly the protagonist of this novel.
Going into it, I thought I'd be more compelled by the modern day heroine, Dr. Gale. Yet, I found myself riveted by the everyday life of survival for Girl and her family, and wanting to hurry through the present day struggles of Dr. Gale. In any other novel, her story would be fraught with tension; but set against the backdrop of the literal life and death struggles of her Neanderthal counterpart, the money and job woes paled in comparison.
Dr. Gale seems to serve as model for what we have lost versus the things we have gained in modern society. Cameron also deftly addresses how women's roles have changed in modern times, and there is a lot to unpack on feminism, family and what makes us human.
Additionally, the story made me more curious about the things that I might have missed in science class and the more recent studies on the intelligence Neanderthals. All around fascinating stuff that I would otherwise not have sought to learn more about - a sign of a really good book, methinks. Many thanks to Little, Brown and Company for an advance copy for my review!

The Last Neanderthal blends two stories of women working ceaselessly for themselves and their families. I appreciate how the author managed to draw connections between the most disparate characters: a neanderthal and a modern-day archaeologist. Though the hunting and gathering sections dragged a bit overall, the poignant ending, linking stories of motherhood, and loss made the read worth it.

I’ve always enjoyed a good historical book, usually the older the better. Well, with The Last Neanderthal, I’ve gone pre-historic. Claire Cameron’s story bounces back and forth between Girl, our Neanderthal protagonist, and Rosamund Gale, and archaeologist excavating a groundbreaking site.

Whenever I immerse myself in a book like this, one that starts quoting numbers and percentages, I ask myself, does the author have the science right? In the end, it’s a work of fiction, make it convincing and reasonable and I’ll run with it. Cameron did exactly that, she gave me a greater appreciation for my Neanderthal ancestors. I felt like I was given an insight into actual events from 40,000 years ago. Cameron made it feel real.

I enjoyed the back and forth presentation of the story. The parallels between Girl and Rose helped to bring the story home; through Rose, Girl became real. Despite the fact that Girl and Rose were separated by thousands of years and some important DNA strands, there was a kinship between the two. This connection wiped away all the differences between us and them.

It’s hard to imagine what life was like before we had all of our gizmos and gadgets; even harder before hot and cold running water and trips to the emergency room when we have a mishap. Cameron took me back to a time when we had fire, and the wheel was right around the corner. The basic conveniences that I take for granted were nowhere in sight; she made this time real, tangible and not that far removed from where we are today.

The Last Neanderthal was a captivating story that I couldn’t wait to get back into. Cameron introduced me to a whole new world that I would love to visit again. I kept thinking over and over again, “How does a species go extinct? In a blaze of glory or with a quiet poof?”

The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron
When I was much younger and taking anthropology classes I remember being profoundly struck by the information that the Neanderthal buried their dead with ceremony. If they were a lost link, a dead branch on the evolutionary tree, or assimilated by the next rung on the evolutionary ladder, when I learned this information I knew then that the Neanderthal was more than we were being taught. If a burial is done with ceremony there is some feeling in the psyche that there is more.
In The Last Neanderthal author Cameron introduces us to Girl and her family. They are preparing to join the other families at the fishing site where new families will be formed and their lives will continue. Unbeknownst to Girl’s family the numbers of Neanderthal families are dwindling. Girl’s family meets with difficulties and dangers and because their family is small, they become an even smaller unit. In the end, Girl and Runt, a strange looking foundling who is cared for by Girl’s family, are the ones who must forge on for the sake of survival, not realizing they are the only ones left, and not realizing further that Runt isn’t one of them.
Fast forward 40,000 years to an excavation site run by Rosamund Gale where two skeletons are found lying on their sides, facing each other with arms and hands entwined. Like lovers who fell asleep facing and holding each other. But one of the skeletons is Neanderthal and one is not. It is Rosamund’s task to convince the scientific community that not only did Neanderthal and more modern man coexist, they could have lived together as family. It’s hard to upend a long held scientific thought. Perhaps the Neanderthal’s didn’t just die off or were killed by those who came after. Perhaps there was cooperation and family units. It’s a tough sell but one Rose is determined to prove with this find. But she has the added obstacle of being hugely pregnant and is running head long into chauvinistic opposition.
I thought this might be a decent story, one that was a bit on the Indiana Jones spectrum but I was very and pleasantly surprised it was more than a decent story, it was a very good story, a thinker, and nowhere near Indiana Jones.

France, a female archeologist finds the bones of two people, the bones displayed as if they are looking at each other at the time of their deaths. A very important discovery as it turns out because one of the skeletons is a female Neanderthal and the other a male homo sapiens.

This is a cleverly constructed book, as we go back to the time of the Neanderthal and our author reimagines a time when they were living. She uses a family, a mother, a girl, a boy and another boy, and a young boy that they have sort of adopted that is quite different from them. They call him Runt. Their daily lives, constant quest for food, the danger from predators, each members role in the family, though eventually this will be the girls story as circumstances dictate that it is her we will follow. This story alternates with the modern day as Rosamunde, our archeologist struggles to get financing for her dig, an unexpected pregnancy and trying to maintain control of the dig and her personal life. Both paths of these women will have commonalities and differences but the struggle for women will intersect across time.

Changing views of our perception of the intelligence of the Neanderthal made this book believable. Genetics has proven that many ancestors of these early people are still alive today, it is in their DNA. Although little is known about their lives, which the author acknowledges in her afterward, leaving her free to use her imagination. I enjoyed this look into some unknown history, and freely admit that the historical storyline was the more fascinating one. Well written, well imagined, a different type of read.

ARC from Netgalley.
Publishes April 25th from Little Brown.

The subject matter of this novel excited me a great deal - I absolutely love books that attempt very ambitious non-literary projects, in this case incorporating cutting-edge research on a particular field, like the social lives and biological make-up of neanderthals, into a compelling fictional story. I don't have anywhere near the technical or academic competence to judge whether Cameron made good use of the latest findings in the field (I'd love to hear what an expert like Chris Stringer or Svante Pääbo would have to say), but I found the sections dealing with Girl, the neanderthal we follow at length in her very difficult journey through a hauntingly empty central Europe, very compelling as fiction. Almost all my reservations are tied to the sections set in our own time, and the way those sections are meant to reflect, and intertwine with, the prehistoric chapters. She cites Blaffer Hrdy's important book about re-thinking concepts like "maternal instinct" in her Author's Note, but the application of that material to the present-day sections is so clumsy, and very much at odds with the gist of the message of the book, which seems very invested in the biological imperative of mothering (a concept I myself am very dubious of). In other words, the modern-day sections read like a thesis rather than as fiction - perhaps compounded by it being set in a world of competing academic and non-academic strategies for successful research. There's a scene about a third of the way through where the modern-day protagonist Rosamund has to try to sell her research project to a funding group, and it's so profoundly implausible in both structure and tone that I nearly gave up at that point. The stuff about Rosamund's personal life is a little better, but still suffers from the author's need to incorporate theoretical arguments about motherhood. Don't get me wrong, as I started out saying, I love it when authors are ambitious enough to incorporate rigorous academic knowledge and thought into a fictional narrative - but these sections don't utilize that research in an organic or fluid way at all (some of the early scenes of neanderthal family life suffer a little from the same problem).
However, I still loved the ambition of the scope, and of the ideas - and I really appreciated a fresh take on prehistoric humanity in novel form.

Pre-hIstorical fiction! The setting is France: pre-historic and contemporary. Cameron gives life to Girl, a young neanderthal woman living with her very small family in the mountains of what we now know is France. And Rose, a British archaeologist who is also pregnant and unsure abut what her every next move will be, is all consumed with the discovery of a neanderthal skeleton and a modern day human skeleton that were found fossilized together. The two women are soon on a parallel journey that will make Rose see that their are very primitive forces at work in every one of us.

Most memorable for me is the scene where Girl eats the ___________.....well, that's actually many scenes! And it is truly a memorable novel. An admirable follow up to her great novel, The Bear!

To be entirely honest this isn't something that I typically pick up but as I am interested in archaeology I thought I would give it a go and the premise sounded intriguing. I am glad I gave it a try. Following the two parallel story lines of the two women was a really interesting way of doing this and I think it worked well. The writing made it easy to get into and it is quite a unique book. While I did enjoy this, I didn't love it. Something just didn't completely click into place for me. I would still recommend checking this out, if you are interested.

Pub. Date: April 25, 2017
Publisher: Little, Brown, and Company

This is a novel about the makings of the female species. There are two female protagonists. One lives in the present and the other lives forty thousand years ago. The author, Claire Cameron, weaves the two female’s very different lives together in flash-backs and flash-forwards. Cameron writes her novel as if it is a thesis, with a theory that needs to be proved. Her hypothesis is that our ancestors were strikingly similar to the humans of today. Her endnotes have an impressive list of references on the subject showing that she did her homework. This style of writing could be the books weakness as if reading a dissertation. Instead, her storytelling skills are so good that it is the books strength. It reads as a historical fiction, a mystery, a past paced suspense tale, and a love story to the human race, with an emphasis on the female’s body ability to create another being.

The modern day woman is a pregnant archaeologist who is racing to get grant funding to continue her work on Neanderthal artifacts before her baby is born. The bones she finds in her dig are of two bodies and they are a shocking discovery because they are of a female Neanderthal and a human male buried together positioned as if embracing. In the distant past, the Neanderthal teenage girl is also pregnant. She is racing to find shelter before her baby is born. It is crucial that this baby lives since she knows that her species numbers are low. Her mother taught her that her reason for being born is to reproduce so the “family” can continue. (Family can mean their immediate family but is also used as their word for all Neanderthals). It is clear to the reader that the female bones found by the archaeologist are the bones of the female Neanderthal protagonist. Both the Neanderthal girl and the modern day woman have very difficult births, one without her partner, in a country where she doesn’t speak the language and the other alone in a hole in the earth during a snowstorm. Both almost lose their life giving birth and have to decide whether to save their own life or the life of their unborn baby. This type of choice always makes for a thought provoking and heart-tugging read.

By itself, the story of the modern day heroine would have been a good women’s book asking if working women can have it all—a fulfilling career and family life? Then the author then adds in a post par-tum psychosis, and the archaeologist begins to think about killing her baby. A temporary madness that makes for an interesting story but it has been written before in “All She Ever Wanted” by Rosalind Noonan and other stories on this subject. But the story of the Neanderthal girl is so intriguing I sometimes became annoyed when the next chapter focused on the archaeologist. In the girl’s story, I became lost in the world of 40 thousand years ago when the last families of Neanderthals roamed the earth. They were incredible people, and I choose to call them people because of what I learned in this book. Yet, they had animal decentness that modern humans do not have. Unless desperate, they never killed a baby animal. They understood that this would disrupt the balance of the order of life because then the baby bison would not grow and continue the circle of life.

I became fascinated with other side stories in the novel too such as, the girl’s friendship with a tiger too old to hunt. He would come to visit her like a pet and she would give him strips of meat, usually cooked. (The Neanderthals would eat raw meat immediately after a successful hunt but once brought home the carcass is cooked). The Neanderthal girl and the tiger jointly knew that if it came down to their own existence one would kill the other even though they were friends. It is survival of the fittest with a certain kindness and respect. Another character that intrigued me is a boy child that the mother Neanderthal took in when she found him lost and orphaned. He becomes a much loved adopted family member even though they saw him as an odd looking child with something strange about him. He had impressive qualities that they did not have. Something about his arms allowed him to throw and hit a target as only an adult could. Unlike the others, who rarely use their voice to communicate in words, he chattered all day long driving the others crazy. And a difference that made this reader laugh out loud is that the family worried that when his time came he will never find a mate, because he is such an ugly looking male no female would find him attractive enough to want him. (I guess Neanderthals were not impressed with human features).

I will not share what happens to each of the female heroines or their babies. It would be a spoiler. I will share that one of my favorite parts in the archaeologist’s story is when she is in labor and couldn’t talk with the doctor so they locked eyes and somehow managed to communicate without out words in the ways of the Neanderthals. This book makes me want to pay attention to my own forgotten senses that are lost to me from lack of use. I often joke that my sinus and spine pains can tell me when the weather is about to change. Could this be how modern Homo sapiens modified our alertness to nature? And can we once again regain instincts that we have lost? The author made me truly feel for our ancient ancestors as if they were my relatives and not creatures that became extinct. This is powerful a novel that made me often tear and sometimes laugh all while exploring the concept of what makes us human?

Recent science has been rethinking the way we're originally perceived out distant relatives, indeed related if only by a small margins due to the long ago crossbreeding of their species with homo sapiens. This book does more than rethink, it vividly reimagines the Neanderthals as all too sentient, intelligent and able individuals. While that portrayal might be viewed as too steeped in anthropomorphism, it's nevertheless very compelling, as the book follows one young Neanderthal girl's journey. This takes up majority of the book, minority of it is dedicated to the female archeologist who discovers the remains of the girl some 40 000 years later. There are parallels to their lives that are meant to tie the story together, but they seems too structured and simplified in a way, for me they added nothing really. Separately, it's possible the archeologist character just didn't do much for me, there isn't a lot there but fanatical dedication to her work, at cost to her relationship and possibly fate of her child (she spends most of the book pregnant), although the book does go to great length to present an uncomfortably realistic view of pregnancy, childbirth and subsequent childcare from a psychological point of view. With exception of the aforementioned overdrawn parallels, the book was well written, interesting and entertaining. For someone with a great interest in the past and evolution in general and Neanderthals in particular this is certainly worth a read. Thanks Netgalley.

In recent memory I stumbled across an article implying modern man is more connected to Neanderthals then most would think. It was a scientific type article and it mentioned DNA links. I have often referred to some men as Neanderthal, but of course I did so jokingly (or not). I was rather fascinated with this account, even though I did not recognize any factual accounts of scientific or archeological proof. Maybe I just missed it. The author’s creativity of suggesting how it may have come about just seems to fit, providing an enjoyable read and provoking contemplation of the historical aspects. Suggestions of the creation of speech also approximates studies I have explored. The natural instincts of humans both male and female certainly indicate the almost natural act of crossbreeding. This is a well written account of how it may have been. Five stars easily.

Thanks to NetGalley and to Little, Brown and Company for the preview copy of this book.

This was a very different story than I had anticipated. I had thoughts of an archeological dig, with all the movie melodrama that entails. Instead, this was a very curiously moving story of the present day archaeologist juxtaposed with the Neanderthal Girl. The similarities were striking. What does family mean? What is the role of the provider? How can history inform us of these facts or in some cases misinform?

The intertwining stories were intriguing on their own merit, but I really enjoyed looking into the mirror and seeing the past/present woman.

Cameron's latest, after the harrowing The Bear, is a slightly easier read than its predecessor. It centers on a Neanderthal girl in . . . Neanderthal times? . . . who is struggle to survive and to maintain her family traditions. This is interspersed with the story of a (pregnant) archaeologist working on an important dig in France. I found the former much more fascinating--I think I just know too many stories about women struggling in academia and with finding grant funding AND with motherhood, though Cameron certainly nails all of that. But she REALLY nails the Neanderthal girl, and the modern segments put a lot of that story/history in context, so I suppose it all does work together. I also really liked the way she wrapped things up. A far cry from Clan of the Cave Bear. A/A-.

I was very interested in the premise, but it read more like an anthropology textbook than a novel. I didn't finish it.