ONE OF AMAZON'S TOP 100 BOOKS OF 2014 Neanderthal Man tells the story of genetic
ist Svante Paabo's mission to answer this question: what can we learn from the g
enomes of our closest evolutionary relatives? Beginning with the study of DNA in
Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in the sequencing of the Ne
anderthal genome in 2010, Neanderthal Man describes the events, intrigues, failu
res, and triumphs of these scientifically rich years through the lens of the pio
neer and inventor of the field of ancient DNA. We learn that Neanderthal genes o
ffer a unique window into the lives of our hominid relatives and may hold the ke
y to unlocking the mystery of why humans survived while Neanderthals went extinc
t. Paabo's findings have not only redrawn our family tree, but recast the fundam
entals of human history--the biological beginnings of fully modern Homo sapiens,
the direct ancestors of all people alive today.
