Author does a masterful job of portraying the possible daily lives of Neanderthals
Chances are you’re a bit of a Neanderthal.
In 2010, a team of researchers sequenced the Neanderthal genome and discovered that modern humans of European and Asian descent have inherited between one and four per cent of heir DNA from Neanderthals. So in fact, Neanderthals are our cousins. This is the springboard for Claire Cameron’s new novel, The Last Neanderthal.
Cameron, who professes to a life-long fascination with Neanderthals, has written her latest novel as an attempt to imagine how Neanderthals and homo sapiens may have made contact. In doing so she has created a vividly imagined world that provides the reader with a picture of what life might have been like 40,000 years ago.
The central character of the novel is Girl, a young Neanderthal who is on the verge of adulthood. She is a member of a family that is headed by Big Mother and includes her brothers Him and Bent. There is also Runt, a stray orphan who has been adopted by the family.
Cameron portrays Neanderthals as a matriarchal society. It is Girl’s hope that she will soon be able to become a Big Mother and head up a family of her own.
Girl’s story is paired with the modern day story of Rose Gale, an archeologist who has discovered a burial site containing the skeletons of a Neanderthal and a Homo sapien lying facing each other almost in an embrace. This discovery supports Rose’s theory that there were in fact complex interactions between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.
Girl is presented as a character capable of a range of emotions and thoughts. She is also an equal participant in all the activities of the family. One harrowing solo encounter with two leopards demonstrates Girl’s prowess with a spear and her ability to deal with adversity.
While Girl has to contend with leopards and other predators on a daily basis, Rose has challenges of her own. In addition to being pregnant, Rose has to protect her discovery from interlopers who she fears will want steal the academic credit for her find. It turns out the world of academia can be as predatory as life 40,000 years ago.
Cameron has done a masterful job of portraying the possible daily lives of Neanderthals including their family structure, beliefs and rituals. She also shows Neanderthals as having a deep relationship with and respect for nature. Their survival depended on an intense understanding of their surroundings and the animals they shared it with.
In doing so Cameron manages to humanize Neanderthals, who, until recently, were often portrayed as grunting, cave-dwelling knuckle draggers who died off because they were unable to compete with superior Homo sapiens.
This is Claire Cameron’s third novel. Her last novel, The Bear, was a national best seller. Her writing has also appeared in The Globe and Mail, The New York Times and Salon. She is a staff writer for The Millions.
