The Flower People of Shanidar. Telling a new tale about our Neanderthal brothers
Oliver Hochadel explores the relationship between comparing and narrating in research on Neanderthals at the interface of archeology, paleontology and paleofiction. In the course of the prominent archeological finds in the Shanidar cave in Northern Iraq in the early 1950s, the image of the Neanderth...
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| Tipo de recurso: | otro |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2020 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.csic.es:10261/222125 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/222125 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | History of science Neanderthal Scientific dissemination Archeology Paleontology Paleofiction Ralph Solecki Popular science Archeological research Science pop culture |
| Sumario: | Oliver Hochadel explores the relationship between comparing and narrating in research on Neanderthals at the interface of archeology, paleontology and paleofiction. In the course of the prominent archeological finds in the Shanidar cave in Northern Iraq in the early 1950s, the image of the Neanderthals was about to be transformed from “beast to brother”—an image so powerful to lastingly influence our view of prehistoric life until the present day. Hochadel retraces the narratives that led to the rehabilitation of the Neanderthals, depicting them as social individuals with human-like behavior. He analyzes the work of the former anthropologist Ralph Solecki who was among the first researchers and popular science writers, portraying the Neanderthals from the Shanidar cave as compassionate and almost human individuals. In his analysis of Solecki’s influential book “Shanidar. The First Flower People”, Hochadel shows that the depiction of the Neanderthal rituals resulted from Solecki’s “double field-work,” involving the interpretation of archeological findings, on the one hand, and the observation of Kurdish life in contemporary Northern Iraq, on the other. As a result, a continuum between “the deep past and the present” and a convincing narrative of the relationship between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals was established. In the following decades, prehistorians and novelists would depict the Neanderthals as emotional and even social individuals who deeply cared for their community. Especially Solecki’s depiction of the burial of one of the Shanidar Neanderthals under a “bed of flowers” became a key image in the new search for similarities between Neanderthal and human behavior and was picked up by Jean Auel in her prehistoric fiction series “Earth’s children,” first published in 1980. Hochadel shows that these narratives, which could flourish due to the close interaction between archeological research and science pop culture, naturalized the comparison between prehistoric and modern life. |
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