The Last Neanderthal
Understanding How Humans Die
1st Edition
Published on 26. September 2025
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-1-5095-6958-8 (ISBN)
Description
It's August 2015. After twenty-five years of archaeological research in a secluded cave overlooking the Rhone Valley in southern France, Ludovic Slimak uncovers the remains of a Neanderthal, frozen in time - a discovery that casts fresh light on a critical turning point in human history. Could these remains belong to one of the last Neanderthals? As scientists from around the world analyze the site, their findings disrupt everything we thought we knew about the final days of these ancient humans. This discovery takes us to the defining threshold when multiple human species, once coexisting in the same world, are wiped from history-leaving Homo sapiens as the sole human survivor.
Slimak takes the reader on an extraordinary journey of discovery that is both scientific and profoundly human, blending rigorous research with evocative storytelling. This breathtaking exploration of the past not only unearths the lost world of the Neanderthals but forces us to confront the unspoken question: is this how humanity dies?
A compelling narrative spanning millennia, The Last Neanderthal is both a groundbreaking scientific revelation and a profound reflection on the fragility of humanity and the threads that connect us to the distant past.
Slimak takes the reader on an extraordinary journey of discovery that is both scientific and profoundly human, blending rigorous research with evocative storytelling. This breathtaking exploration of the past not only unearths the lost world of the Neanderthals but forces us to confront the unspoken question: is this how humanity dies?
A compelling narrative spanning millennia, The Last Neanderthal is both a groundbreaking scientific revelation and a profound reflection on the fragility of humanity and the threads that connect us to the distant past.
Reviews / Votes
"A poetic scientist is a rare bird - don't miss this."Desmond Morris, author of The Naked Ape
"What a book! A sparkling detective story, a bonfire of tired paradigms, and a dramatic interrogation of that crucial question: what sort of creatures are we?"
Charles Foster, author of The Edges of the World
"Immersing yourself in the world of these lost people in The Last Neanderthal is a rare treat"
New Scientist
"Describes important findings."
Kirkus Reviews
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 231 mm
Width: 163 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
477 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5095-6958-8 (9781509569588)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2025
1st Edition
Wiley
€22.99
Available for download
Persons
Ludovic Slimak is a paleoanthropologist at the University of Toulouse and Director of the Grotte Mandrin research project. His work focuses on the last Neanderthal societies and he is the author of several hundred scientific studies on these populations. His research has been featured in Nature, Science, Cell, The New York Times, the Guardian and elsewhere.
Content
First words
Chapter I - Unexpected complications on the way to the unthought
Boldly risking a step into the unknown
Another place, another time?
French poems...
Wandering through the naves of our thermonuclear cathedrals
Nanotechnologies of the first humans
From impressionistic dots to thick lines
A thousand millennia of Anatolian transgressions
Mythologies of the first modern humans
Human beings known as shadows
A first contact with inverted values
Making the best of a bad job
Chapter II - The last Neanderthal? An improbable encounter
The last Neanderthal!
The imaginary realms lying between two worlds
Upside down... Thorin is one hundred and five millennia old!
From rivers that unite to rivers that separate
Light beyond the unknown lands
A last Neanderthal, in his place? Touching the unquantifiable
From flesh to bone
The mind in matter and the gaze versus reality
Mental processes on the edge of the hole
For a few centimetres too many
The first of the last contacts?
Three waves breaking against the intellectual Titanic
Genetic surprises
The stone ship
Gone with the Wind
The oases of the sea
A simplified world
Chapter III - How do humans die?
A grammar between two worlds
Apology for the stifled
No one escapes the sphere
Men from the sky and white opossums
The gods must be crazy
Acculturation and the implosions of the spheres
Men in the trees
The gods must be crazy 2.0
In our disordered memories
The times of extinction
Epilogue. This is how humans die
Acknowledgements
Chapter I - Unexpected complications on the way to the unthought
Boldly risking a step into the unknown
Another place, another time?
French poems...
Wandering through the naves of our thermonuclear cathedrals
Nanotechnologies of the first humans
From impressionistic dots to thick lines
A thousand millennia of Anatolian transgressions
Mythologies of the first modern humans
Human beings known as shadows
A first contact with inverted values
Making the best of a bad job
Chapter II - The last Neanderthal? An improbable encounter
The last Neanderthal!
The imaginary realms lying between two worlds
Upside down... Thorin is one hundred and five millennia old!
From rivers that unite to rivers that separate
Light beyond the unknown lands
A last Neanderthal, in his place? Touching the unquantifiable
From flesh to bone
The mind in matter and the gaze versus reality
Mental processes on the edge of the hole
For a few centimetres too many
The first of the last contacts?
Three waves breaking against the intellectual Titanic
Genetic surprises
The stone ship
Gone with the Wind
The oases of the sea
A simplified world
Chapter III - How do humans die?
A grammar between two worlds
Apology for the stifled
No one escapes the sphere
Men from the sky and white opossums
The gods must be crazy
Acculturation and the implosions of the spheres
Men in the trees
The gods must be crazy 2.0
In our disordered memories
The times of extinction
Epilogue. This is how humans die
Acknowledgements