The Last Neanderthal by Claire CameronMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
What a well structured novel this was. I don't know if the author has ever had a baby, but I would strongly suspect so. If she hasn't, may I commend her on her research? The Neanderthal woman, Girl, is a good mirror for Rose in the present day. They are both women at pivotal junctures in their lives which are complicated by pregnancy. Girl needs to find a mate, join a family, stay alive, and reproduce. Rose has a significant archaeological site to excavate, staff to oversee, papers to write, and a reputation to establish. Pregnancy is a threat to Girl's survival and to Rose's academic survival.
I'm always interested in authors' representations of ancient humans. I do think that Neanderthals were more like us than we might be comfortable with. Their brains were larger in volume and a different shape than Homo sapiens, so they certainly had potential to have skills similar to our own. Not to mention the percentage of Neanderthal DNA found in the modern human genome. I've heard an apocryphal story of a clay reconstruction over a Neanderthal skull, done in the Soviet Union, that looked so much like a member of the Communist party that it got hidden away lest he take offense and relegate the reconstruction artist to Siberia.
About half way through the novel, I realized that the ancient chapters were numbered and the modern chapters were named. I'm unsure of the significance of this, though it was obviously intentional. I must say that I enjoyed the Neanderthal chapters more than the modern story. I guess I already know about life for women now and was more interested in the speculations about the past. My mother always said that I preferred to read about mysterious civilizations rather than the well-documented ones.
If you enjoyed this book, you might also like The Clan of the Cave Bear and The Valley of Horses. The first couple of books in this series were the best for me, after that I found them repetitive and somewhat melodramatic.
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