Fantasizing about our ancestors

 

I haven’t finished Ancestors, by Professor Alice Roberts (the word “professor” appears with the author’s name on the cover)  – this is a long book, around 133,000 words, for a popular science book - but I wouldn’t complain if the text justified the length. Sadly, from the first few chapters, I don’t think I have the interest to continue. 

Choice of subject

Archaeology, as the study of prehistory, without written records, is often of necessity based around inferring a background from the sometimes very partial evidence. But if that evidence is very sparse, it may not be possible to reach any reasonable conclusion. What should we do in this case? Speculate wildly, knowing there is no way to refute our ideas, or simply refrain from making inferences in the absence of more concrete data? 

On the basis of the first two chapters, it would seem that the seven subjects chosen in this book are finds of very early, palaeolithic, remains, a period that is challenging for researchers because of the lack of evidence in and around the sites. Often, there is not much that can be stated with certainty; yet the author is not short of ideas. However fascinating Roberts might find these excavations, it is very unsatisfying to this reader to be presented with so much speculation. The “Red Lady” is a case in point. This collection of human bones found in a Welsh cave included the so-called Red Lady,  the subject of much unwarranted fantasizing by the Reverend William Buckland, who studied the bones during the 1820s. Subsequent examination suggested the bones were of a male rather than female, but Roberts continues to refer to the bones by their romanticized title. You can’t help thinking that, potentially, the real subject matter is the dreams and assumptions that researchers assign to their finds. To study this would require the author to be more aware of her own daydreams, but instead of following this strand, she indulges in further speculation that clearly has little evidence behind it: in the absence of evidence, nobody can say she is wrong.  What researchers imagine (and what popular science authors dream) tells you more about them than about the remains, but this does not seem to be investigated by Roberts. 

Did the Neanderthals bury their dead? There is no general agreement about this, it seems:

While all the evidence from Sima de los Huesos … is inconclusive, there are other sites that suggest at least one other human species did practise burial. The debate – you won’t be surprised to learn – is far from settled, but there are a handful of discoveries … that suggest that Neanderthals themselves may hav e buried their dead. [p98]

We then get 20 pages on one excavation, which seems to suggest (according to the excavator) that it was a Neanderthal burial. But even if this was an example of a burial, it is clear that “[burial] certainly wasn’t the norm. Very ancient burials are few and far between – sporadic. Only a small number of people were ever treated in this way when they died.” That looks to me like stating the position four times over. And what conclusion should we draw? The author suggests that now we should think of the Neanderthals “less like unfeeling brutes. More like cousins”.

You might think this an unwarranted interjection of modern ideas about what burial means, based on our own preconceptions, but the author reassures us. It’s OK, states one of the research team, as long as we are looking at each site with “the utmost rigour and with as few preconceptions as possible”.

If I felt the author had been more aware of her own preconceptions, it might have made a more interesting book. Plus, of course, taking a red pen to the many unnecessary words – for example, you don’t examine remains, you “painstakingly comb through the remains” (p110) .  

Fantasizing

The chapter on the Red Lady ends with two pages of fantasy, imagining how the “Red Lady” might have got into the cave:

“We can imagine the day of his burial. He could have been a murderer, or murdered. But let’s imagine him as a fallen hero.” 

This is followed by three pages of pure imaginative reverie. Yet, elsehwere, the author warns us against too much speculation: “Such tantalising suggestions of grave good and perhaps even stones placed as grave markers. But it’s so important not to let the imagination run wild”. [p113] 

When I read a popular science book, I like to be told about what has been discovered. I’m perfectly happy with uncertainty, but above a certain level, uncertainty just leaves me (the typical general reader) dissatisfied. 

Compared to this book, I found other popular science authors such as Francis Pryor (for archaeology) and Steve Jones (for evolution and genetics) far more informative and readable. And less idly speculative.