Era, its main issues seem to be rathernastonishingly like those of 20th-centurynAmerica. To see why this is so incongruousnit is necessary to know somethingnof the novel’s setting.nThe Clan of the Cave Bear is an attemptnto reconstruct what might haventranspired when some of the earliestnmodern people came in contact withnthe last survivors of an earlier groupnof humans. To follow a familiar parallelnwith another form of entertainment,nbefore getting on to the details of thengame, let’s first identify the teams, thennintroduce the key players.nThe earliest modern people are referrednto in Auel’s novel as Cro-Magnonsn{sic; to be linguistically correct thenterm is Cr6-Magnon] after the site innthe Dordogne Valley of France wherenin 1868 the first fossilized skeletonsnbearing skulls with small faces tuckednbeneath high-domed skulls were discoverednin a geological context of undisputablynhigh antiquity. This discoverynconfirmed a time depth extending backntens of thousands of years for peoplenwho looked like us, a conclusion whichnhad been hinted at by a whole series ofnpreceding but less-conclusive findsndating back to at least 1823. By the timenthat Victorians had been forced to acceptnthe idea that at one time evennEnglishmen and Frenchmen had livednas bead-bedecked backwoodsmen, annidea even more disturbing to some hadnto be faced: evidence from nearby Germanynindicated these early ancestors ofnours had inherited the earth from morenprimitive humans, Neanderthals.nS6inChronicles of CultttrenUntil the middle of the 19th century.nNeanderthal was simply another placenname, referring to a small valley nearnDiisseldorf, Germany that had been anfavorite place for the contemplative amblingsnof a locally revered 17th-centuryncomposer of hymns, Joachim Neumannn(who, after the style of many scholarsnof that time, had Latinized his name bynsimple transliteration to Neander). Inn1856 workers clearing out a cave in thenvalley came across a human skeleton.nWhen first found this was probably verynnearly complete, but the workmen discardednall save a few of the larger bonesnand the skullcap. By quick action a localnschoolmaster named Fuhlrott was ablento save these from reburial in the localncemetery. He sent the fossils instead tonProfessor Schaafhausen in Bonn, whonpublished a monograph describing themnin 1858.nBy this tenuous series of accidentsnthe fossil remains of Neanderthals camento be the first premodern form of humansnthat was discovered. Moreover,nit is of considerable significance fornpresent views about them that thesenmore ancient humans were unearthednbefore publication of Charles Darwin’sntwo epoch-making books on evolution:nThe Origin of Species (1859) and ThenDescent of Man (1871). In the absencenof an accepted intellectual frameworknwhich could encompass our more ancientnand different predecessors, thenfirst Neanderthal—with his massivenface, beetling brows, sloping forehead,nlow-domed skull and generally robustnskeleton—was easy to dismiss as a freak.nIn the spirit of his time, one Dr. Gibbnopined that the subject had been afflictednwith “hypertrophic deformation,” a bitnof pseudomedical jargon for a conditionnnever identified before or since. EvennRudolph Virchow, the most eminentnGerman pathologist of his day, publishedna detailed list of the Neanderthalnspecimen’s supposed pathologies.nIhese misdiagnoses are curious andndisturbing; more curious still is theninescapable fact that now, even afternnndozens more Neanderthals are known—nfrom Europe, the Near East and elsewhere—sonthat every part of the skeletonnis represented many times over,nthere still persists the idea that Neanderthalsnwere egregious and not a littlengrotesque. That is, faced with abundantnproof that the first Neanderthal foundnwas not a unique oddity, instead of acceptingnits like as potential ancestors,nmost of Western culture has come tonconsider the entire Neanderthal populationnas a collective embarrassment.nUnfortunately, Auel’s work does little,nif anything, to alter this curious and unfortunatenstate of affairs. As notednearlier, it does little to help us understandnour predecessors. Instead, thentreatment here has taken the record ofna people who survived for over 3500ngenerations, or several times as long asnour republic has endured, and presentednit as if their demise were inherent fromnthe beginning. This is as nonsensicalnas the retrospective pronouncements onnthe other “inevitabilities” of later history.nThere is, quite simply, no objectivenevidence to indicate that we shouldnview the Neanderthals as having beennforedoomed.nTowards the likes of the Neanderthalsnour attitude should be compounded insteadnof admiration (the average sizenof their brains evidently exceeded ours),nrespect (they buried their dead, withnceremony and sometimes with flowers),nawe (Neanderthals flourished in WesternnEurope at the height of the Pleistocenenglaciation with a material culturenno more advanced than today’s relictn