Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans

For my taste, I prefer less dramatization in science based books. The author spends too much time on dramatization of the different homo species and their interaction with each other and their world. Speculation is ok in the right context. I’ll keep this book on my fiction shelf. That’s how it felt to me. This is definitely not an author I would read again.

Books on human evolution are a challenged genre, and our ignorance of the dynamics of that evolution remains very deep. But accounts of the descent of man, as here, can be a reminder that the Darwin dogmas of natural selection are at best conjecture and speculation, and at the worst an invitation to the Social Darwinist obsessions of the evolutionary psychologists. Fagan's account is interesting and useful because it is free of and unspoiled by those obsessions (uncommon in this genre), and simply tells the story of human evolution (now transformed by the genetics of the Out of Africa scenario) as far as we know it, leaving the mystery behind its evolutionary mechanics in the background. In a real sense we can't resolve the mechanism of human evolution because we don't even understan the man who so evolved: issues of language, ethics, and consciousness have defeated all attempts at explanation, although the evidence repeatedly suggests a sudden explosion in the emergence of homo sapiens, well before the old-fashioned version of European 'Cro-magnon' which this book abandons.

As a teacher of prehistory, I found this new Brian Fagan book terrific! Especially noted is his sensitive portrayal and recreation of of the Neanderthals as extraordinarily competent hunters and tool makers. He calls them -- the quiet people. Particularily interesting was his description of trying to hunt in the wild with simple tools. It is a challenge for modern man and we get the idea how talented these ancient hunters must have been. Also, his updates for those of us who were trained some years ago, are excellent. Since I teach prehistory as an outreach program in Greenwich, Connecticut, and surrounding towns, I will recommend it to every school that I visit. Great job! Nancy Stone Bernard, Director, Prehistoric People Project, Greenwich, CT.

It would be uncharitable not to rate this book a "5". Fagan is very learned, is famailiar with the literature and the facts on the ground, is a noted anthropologist, and has a lively and lucid writing style. Because the book is so good, it is worth engaging, and engage one of its major theses I will. This book might better be entitled "Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon: How did They Interact and What Happened When They did?" Fagan devotes almost half the book to facts and speculations concerning Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal interaction, and suggests three hypotheses: (1) Cro-Magnon violently exterminated Neanderthals; (2) Neadterthals died out for reasons relatively unrelated to Cro-Magnon; and (3) Cro-Magnon inadvertently led to Neaderthal Extinction by outcompeting for habitat and food supply. He comes down in favor of "3," and he has a good argument. Cerntain (1) has to be suspect. Cro-Magnon and Neaderthaler co-existed for over 15,000 years -- three times the span of recorded history. What modern human populations have ever co-existed anywhere near that long without exterminating, dominating, or interbreeding? Moreoever, there is exactly one Neaderthaler skeleton showing any sign of interpersonal violence, and these remains may have predated Cro-Magnon habitation. Where I have a problem with Fagan is in his fictionalized scenario of a Cro-Magnon man noticing Neanderthalers out of the corner of his eye, but concluding that there were not as many such sightings as there used to be years ago. Put another way, Fagan is suggesting that Neaderthaler was gradually dying out and Cro-Magnons would be in a position to notice the decline. This is the fallacy of compressed time. There may never have been over 15,000 breeding Neaderthalers. If there were one less of them every year since 45,000 B.C., who would notice? Over a 15,000 year span, the Neanderthaler population could grow or shrink fifty times or more relative to the Cro-Magnon population, and what modern archeologist could conclude from the paltry fossil record (500 Neaderthaler skeletal remains since 250,000 years of Neanderthaler existence -- less than 1 per century; what can this demonstrate about Neaderthaler demographics?) The real question is not if or how Cro-Magnon out-competed or exterminated Neaderthal, but how they managed to co-exist as long as they did. All in all, a very fine book. But its attempted reconstruction of Cro-Magnon -- Neaderthal interrelations just does not make sense to me at crucial junctures. An upate: Since I wrote this review, scientists appear to have discovered that there are a fair number of Neanderthal genes in modern humans -- i.e. that Neanderthalers interbred with homo sapiens sapiens. Obviously, Fagan could lnot have known about this when he wrote his book, and this finding might change everything. Right now, it raises more questions than it answers. For example, our Neanderthaler genes appear to predate the movement of Cro-Magnons into Eu

Brian Fagan deliberately uses the term "Cro-Magnon" even though it is out of current academic fashion, but it is widely and immediately recognized as meaning those anatomically modern humans who came into Europe 40000-plus years ago to eventually supplant the Neanderthal population already there and become, genetically speaking, the ancestors of modern Europeans. The author thoroughly grounds his narrative in the fruits of archaeological studies, although a good deal of well-informed speculation is necessary where the archaeological record is nonexistent. Much of this speculation derives from close observations made of comparitively modern hunter-gatherer peoples, especially Inuits who faced many of the same climatic challenges met by the Cro-Magnons. Fagan typically begins each chapter with a vignette highlighting particular characteristics of life at some particular period, as circumstances changed and cultures evolved. The author does not neglect the Neanderthals, and a large part of the book examines how and why the Cro-Magnons came to replace them throughout Europe. Fagan is careful to avoid traditional negative stereotypes concerning the Neanderthals and presents them as intelligent, agile, adaptable people, but whose mental processes ultimately could not match those of Cro-Magnons, whose skills at innovation proved superior at adapting to changing environmental conditions. For the most part Fagan sidesteps the perennial question of whether Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons interbred, but it is plain that the author considers any genetic contribution from the earlier humans to modern Europeans to be inconsequential (if any exists at all). And he quite plainly rejects any scenario of major violent interaction between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. Rather, he favors the idea that in the long run, the Neanderthal population could not successfully compete for resources and faded away. Perhaps the best portions of the book are where Fagan explores the making and meaning of art (especially those wondrous cave paintings) to the Cro-Magnons.

Brian Fagan is one of my favorite authors. I was first introduced to his books in college. They were the text books in the prehistory courses I took for my major in archeology. More recently, he has been writing about the effects of climate change on human history. He has a talent for writing about complex subjects like climate change so that they are comprehensible for the lay reader without "dumbing down" the material. With his most recent book, he has returned to the subject of prehistory with a comprehensive overview of the first anatomically modern humans, who he refers to as "Cro- Magnon" after the rock shelter where the first remains were discovered. Cro-Magnons are best known as the people who created the magnificent cave paintings in Europe. When Cro-Magnons migrated into Europe from the Near East, it was already inhabited by the Neanderthals, relatives but not direct ancestors. Dr. Fagan refers to the Neanderthals as the "Quiet People" because they lacked fluent speech. They also lacked symbolism, religion, art and innovation. Their way of life was unchanged for hundreds of thousands of years. Unable to compete with their more advanced cousins, the Cro-Magnons, the Neanderthals gradually died out. The Ice Age was not uniformly cold. There were periods of warmth when vegetation and animal populations changed. The Cro-Magnons were experts at adapting to the changing conditions, hunting large game when it was cold and smaller game when it was warm. The tools they left behind reflect the constant innovations that made them so successful. Their art, musical instruments and burials reveal their rich spiritual life. The Cro-Magnons spread out all over Europe, hunting, foraging, constantly adapting to changing conditions for tens of thousands of years until the next wave of migration swept into Europe: farmers from the Near East. Did the Cro-Magnons die out like the Neanderthals before them? DNA tells us no. 85% of Europeans are direct descendants of Cro-Magnons. "Cro-Magnon" offers the latest theories developed from hundreds of years of archeology devoted to European prehistory. The information is presented in a very readable form. No prior knowledge is needed by the reader. All specialized terms are explained. Brian Fagan has done it again, taken a vast and complicated subject and produced a book that is both educational and engaging.