Kindred
These days, Neanderthals are hot, and not just in academic circles. Big discoveries about Neanderthals make the news in mainstream media and major science journals alike. In Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art, archaeologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes demonstrates that more is happening in the world of Neanderthal studies than what she terms “Neander-news”.
Sykes shares her considerable knowledge about current Neanderthal studies in a style that is clear enough for the lay reader but never simplistic.* She looks closely at long-held beliefs about Neanderthals and how they evolved, beginning with the assumption that they lived primarily in the Ice Age. She shows how archaeologists are overturning many of those beliefs as a result of new discoveries and the application of new scientific technologies to sites that were first excavated decades earlier. She considers the ways in which Neanderthals are different from us physically, and speculates as to why. She introduces readers to the details of Neanderthals’ tools, diet, and shelters, pulling the curtain back to demonstrate how scientists know what they know. And she makes some fascinating, and controversial, leaps from what we know about the physical world of the Neanderthals to what that knowledge might tell us about how they thought about that world. Personally, I love this stuff.
At each step of the way, Sykes compares our new knowledge about Neanderthals with our knowledge about ancient homo sapiens. She makes a persuasive case that Neanderthals were not a dead end on the path to us, but instead “enormously adaptable and even successful ancient relatives.” In short, they were our kindred.
In the end, Kindred is a book not only about who the Neanderthals were and how they lived, but about what it means to be human.
*My favorite sentence in the book: “Neanderthals have long held the title of Most Hench Hominim”**
**I will save you the trouble of looking it up: Hench (Comparative, more hench. Superlative, most hench) Big, strong, and muscular.
Most of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers.
Stopping for a Moment to Count My Blessings
It’s Thanksgiving here in the United States, and I’m trying hard to count my blessings.
Several years ago in my Thanksgiving post I wrote: “As is true of all the best traditions, it is always the same and always different.” My first reaction when I read that was “Not this year. This year it is not the same.” And yet, perhaps, it is. It is still about reaching out to families—those we were born into and those we chose. About creating a feast that celebrates the fruits of the harvest, whether it is turkey for forty or squash risotto for two. About giving thanks.
For several years, I’ve made a daily practice of writing down five things I’m grateful for as I wait for the water to boil for my morning cup of tea. Over the course of this difficult year, I let that practice drop. That was a mistake. Because taking a moment to be thankful is even more important when things are hard.
Earlier this week, I started making my gratitude list again. (And checking it twice.) One thing I’m grateful for, whether I’m making my list or not, are those of you who read History in the Margins. You share my posts, send me comments and ideas, ask hard questions, point out the typos, and cheer me on. Without you, I’d be talking to myself.
Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I
I must admit, Alexander Watson’s Ring of Steel has been sitting on my To-Be-Read shelves since 2014. I received it from a publisher who hoped I would review it. I was in over my head on a writing project that had nothing do with World War I. Read a 500+ page book with no immediate application to the task at hand? Nope!
But there is a reason I seldom weed non-fiction from my shelves. Six years later, Ring of Steel turned out to be just the book I need.* It also turned out to be a wonderful read.
I dipped into Ring of Steel because I wanted to know what life was like in Berlin during World War I. The short answer? Not good. Watson takes a deep dive into food shortages, the black market, and largely unsuccessful government attempts to manage them in both Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire. He looks at how people tried to supplement their food, from urban gardening, food cooperatives, and “hamstering” —the name for city people traveling into the countryside to forage. He looks at the impact of conscripting men and animals on the ability of farms to produce crops. He also makes clear how dependent Germany was on imported food and, more importantly, on imported fertilizer. (Reading this in the days leading up to Thanksgiving has certainly made me it easier to count my blessings.)
Watson answered the questions I knew I had, and many that I hadn’t known to ask. For instance, Britain implemented a long-range, ever-tightening blockade of Germany that was illegal according to international law of the time.** Something I certainly didn’t know.
I found it particularly interesting to look at familiar events, such as the U-boat campaign and the infamous Zimmermann telegram, from the German perspective. It is worth remembering that there is always another side to the war.***
Ring of Steel is an excellent example of military history that moves beyond the battlefield and armaments to look at the the society, culture, and ideas that surrounded them. If that’s your stein of beer, I highly recommend it.
*With a hat tip to Elizabeth Lunday, who recommended it in the notes to an episode of her The Year That Was podcast. It is one of the best and most unusual history podcasts around: an extraordinary look at 1919 from many angles. I just finished re-listening to the episode on the Spanish Flu, which she recorded in October 2019. It came a bit too close to home.
** A technique the Germans borrowed with great success in World War II?
***In the case of the Zingermann telegram, there is a third side to the story that is often overlooked: Mexico’s response.