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This book tells the story of the dynamic and resilient people commonly known as the Cro-Magnons in light of recent scientific advances.
List of contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Discovery
2. Archaeology of the Ancients
3. The Abel to Our Cain? Homo neanderthalensis
4. Fossil and Recent Homo sapiens
5. A Paleontological Perspective on Modern Human Origins
6. The Genetics of Modern Human Origins
7. Is There Such a Thing as Modern Human Behavior?
8. Neandertal and Cro-Magnon Interactions in Europe
9. Bioanthropology of the Cro-Magnons
10. Slings and Arrows
11. Cro-Magnon Art
12. Cold Comfort
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Trenton Holliday is professor of anthropology at Tulane University and honorary research fellow at the Centre for the Exploration of the Deep Human Journey, University of the Witwatersrand.
Summary
During the Last Ice Age, Europe was a cold, dry place teeming with mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, reindeer, bison, cave bears, cave hyenas, and cave lions. It was also the home of people physically indistinguishable from humans today, commonly known as the Cro-Magnons. Our knowledge of them comes from either their skeletons or the tools, art, and debris they left behind.
This book tells the story of these dynamic and resilient people in light of recent scientific advances. Trenton Holliday—a paleoanthropologist who has studied the Cro-Magnons for decades—explores questions such as: Where and when did anatomically modern humans first emerge? When did they reach Europe, and via what routes? How extensive or frequent were their interactions with Neandertals? What did Cro-Magnons look like? What did they eat, and how did they acquire their food? What can we learn about their lives from studying their skeletons? How did they deal with the glacial cold? What does their art tell us about them?
Holliday offers new insights into these ancient people from anthropological, archaeological, genetic, and geological perspectives. He also considers how the Cro-Magnons responded to Earth’s postglacial warming almost 12,000 years ago, showing that how they dealt with climate change holds valuable lessons for us as we negotiate life on a rapidly warming planet.
