Philippa Kaur

Simon Prades
Around 41,000 years ago, the very last Neanderthal took their final breath. At that moment, we became the only remaining hominins, the sole survivors of the once diverse family of bipedal apes.
We will never know exactly when or where this momentous event took place, but we do know the Neanderthals died out suspiciously close to the time when modern humans arrived in their territory. Exactly why they vanished has long been hotly debated, but astonishing revelations from the genomes of the last Neanderthals and hidden in a remarkable cave in France are now painting a detailed picture of these first encounters – and what might have happened next.

“This is a major turning point in our understanding of Neanderthals and their extinction process,” says Ludovic Slimak at the Centre for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse, France.
Our species, Homo sapiens, and Neanderthals share a common ancestor, but Neanderthals split from our lineage at least 400,000 years ago, evolving in Eurasia, from the Mediterranean to Siberia. Our species is younger, first appearing in Africa some 300,000 years ago and evolving into hominins that were anatomically much like us by at least 195,000 years ago. Modern humans left the continent in waves from around 170,000 years ago, and were thought to have reached western Europe roughly 43,000 years ago, when – according to the… More

The skeleton of an infant uncovered at Grotta delle Mura in Apulia, ItalyMauro Calattin
Ancient DNA analysis has revealed a detailed picture of the life of a toddler who died in southern Italy 17,000 years ago, possibly due to a congenital heart condition.
In 1998, researchers discovered the skeletal remains of a child carefully laid under rock slabs in the floor of the Grotta delle Mura cavern in Apulia, southern Italy. It was the only burial in the cave, which also included signs of daily life and human occupation, says Alessandra Modi at the University of Florence… More

Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake has been shortlisted for the Booker prize
Creation LakeRachel Kushner (Jonathan Cape (UK, 5 September); Scribner (US, 3 September))
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner is a thriller, a spy caper, a comedy and also a poetic take on human history all the way back to the time our species, Homo sapiens, shared Earth with the Neanderthals. It is a sensationally enjoyable novel and has deservedly made the Booker prize longlist.
The story is narrated by our anti-hero, Sadie Smith (not her real name). She is a US undercover operative working for shady employers who is sent to France to infiltrate and ultimately destroy Le Moulin, a group of eco-activists whose members are known as Moulinards.Advertisement
Sadie sets about her task in an entirely amoral fashion. First, she seduces a man named Lucien who has contacts within the activists. After a few months, she has secured work among the Moulinards and travels to Lucien’s family house, conveniently placed in an area of Guyenne, south-west France, where Le Moulin is based.

The roof leaks, but the house itself is a great eyrie to spy upon her prey from – a job made easier by her high-powered, military grade binoculars and a caseful of high-tech kit.
The novel’s structure is brilliant. We follow Sadie as she worms her way into the justifiably paranoid Moulinard community. We are also led backwards through her life, rifling through her backlist of operations and lingering resentments against those who are attempting (rightly) to expose her. We gradually realise our apparently super-professional operative takes unnecessary and dangerous risks. Is she, in fact, a vulnerable young woman hanging by a thread, or a grenade with the pin pulled out? Or both?
These two strands, moving forwards and backwards, are equally gripping, each informing the other with perfect dramatic timing. But it is the book’s third strand, relating to a much older man’s emails, that becomes the beating heart of the book.

Sadie has hacked into Le Moulin’s group email account so she can read every message they get from someone named Bruno Lacombe. He is a mentor and inspiration to the group, and it makes sense that she pays his emails particular attention.
In the messages, Bruno talks about his views on the superiority of Neanderthals, the inferiority of H. sapiens and his life living alone in a Neanderthal cave. He also lectures the Moulinards on the history of the Guyenne area.
As a plot device, these emails have every right not to work. But we quickly learn to read them intently, just as Sadie does. Soon we realise that it is the relationship between Sadie and Bruno (albeit a relationship only she knows about) that is at the emotional centre of the novel.
She is more interested in him and what he has to say than any of the Moulinards are. Might she run into him before her operation in France is over?
I found Bruno’s musings on the Neanderthals, however biased and unscientific, particularly gripping – perhaps because I read them while on a New Scientist tour of the prehistoric art of northern Spain. The oldest artwork there is believed to be by Neanderthals, and however different (or not) they were from us, Bruno’s passion is evocatively captured.
I can’t say any more without spoiling the high-octane plot. As for Sadie, does she deserve our sympathy, and where do the book’s events leave her as a person? I look forward to reading this again, and perhaps puzzling that out.
Emily also recommends…
The Ministry for the FutureKim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
Creation Lake is arguably climate fiction. But if you want the ultimate in cli-fi, then read The Ministry for the Future. The book plays out a scenario that is almost upon us as the world heats up. Its structure, made up of fictional eye-witness accounts, is bold and relentlessly brilliant.

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A Bronze Age mummy from Xinjiang, ChinaWenying Li
A mysterious white substance found on Bronze Age mummies in China has proven to be the world’s oldest cheese.
The cheese remnants were first found about two decades ago, smeared on the heads and necks of mummies found in the Xiaohe cemetery in Xinjiang province, which date from around 3500 years ago.
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It has been long suspected that the substance may have had a fermented dairy origin, but only now have molecular tools become powerful enough to confirm their make-up.
Based on the presence of yeast, lactic acid bacteria and proteins from ruminant milk in the samples, Qiaomei Fu at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and her colleagues have identified the substance as a kind of kefir cheese.
Kefir is a traditional drink made by fermenting milk using kefir grains, which are pellets of microbial cultures, like a sourdough starter.
Fu says the substance was no longer immediately recognisable as kefir cheese. “Due to their age, these pale-yellow cheese samples smelled of nothing and were powdery to touch and a little crumbly,” she says.
While there has been archaeological evidence from pottery of cheese-making technology from as long as 7000 years ago, no one has ever discovered such ancient cheese.
The team found goat and cow DNA in the samples, but it appears that the milk from each of these animals was kept separate – unlike the mixed cheeses in many Greek and Middle Eastern cheese-making traditions. This may have been because goat milk is lower in lactose and so less likely to cause gut problems when consumed.
Fu and her colleagues also recovered the DNA of Lactobacillus kefiranofaciens bacteria from the dairy samples, which they compared with the genomes of modern strains used to make kefir.
The modern strains have evolved in line with the preferences of cheese consumers, says Fu. For example, the DNA analysis suggests the new strains have been selected to cause less of an immune response in the human intestine.

Topics:archaeology More