Missing link?

"Neanderthal" is a two-part documentary about the life and fate of the Neanderthals, the closest evolutionary cousins to Homo sapiens. The documentary was apparently made in 2001, and seems to represent a transitional phase in Neanderthal studies. A missing link, perhaps?

While the Neanderthals are depicted as very "primitive", the narrator emphasizes their hunting and survival skills, perfect adaptation to the cold climate, and basic intelligence. They even speak a rudimentary language. Thus, they are more human-like than the popular depictions of grunting, knuckle-walking cavemen. (They are extremely ugly, though!)

However, on several key points, Neanderthals are nevertheless said to have been duller than our own species. They lacked a symbolic culture, might not have grieved their dead, and somehow didn't understand what on earth was happening when Cro Magnons arrived on their territory. The latter is a remarkably silly statement, since even animals "understand" what happens when humans arrive - that's why many animals avoid human contact!

The documentary also features the ridiculous, patriarchal fantasy that Neanderthal men kidnapped females from other clans to replenish their own. This is based on outmoded anthropological theories about our own pre-history ("exchange of women") and, of course, on the brute caveman stereotype. The only "evidence" presented for the scenario is that Neanderthals were territorial, and must therefore have been patriarchal?! Somebody should inform the script-writer about matriarchal, territorial primates (Bonobos come to mind), or patriarchal species that doesn't abduct females...

The documentary paints the life of the Neanderthals as pretty bleak. Living in isolated bands in a desolate landscape, life really was "nasty, brutish and short". The isolation made Neanderthal culture (including tools and weapons) stagnant, making them easy prey to the invasive Cro Magnon. Or so the documentary claims. Parallels with colonial history or even globalization are subliminally present. Ironically, the Cro Magnon are depicted having African and Native American features. This angle blunts the colonialist-globalist discourse somewhat.

"Neanderthal" ends with the small clan being pushed out of their hunting grounds in southern France, forced to eek out a marginal existence at the Atlantic coast. The narrator tantalizingly speculates that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals might have interbred, but admits that no conclusive genetic evidence for it exists. Today, we know (or think we know) that Europeans have a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA in their genes, suggesting - by definition - that Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis belonged to the same species. This seems to have gone in tandem with a further upgrading of Neanderthal intelligence, making them virtually as smart as our own non-humble selves. This can't be a co-incidence: perhaps the idea of breeding true with "primitive" ape-men is so repugnant to us, that we *have* to claim that our Neanderthal genes comes from an intelligent species? As it happens, this might very well be true, but why did it take so long before we even noticed...?

"Neanderthal" is a very slow-paced and somewhat boring documentary, and frequently looks stereotyped or absurd. For that reason, I will only give it two stars. But yes, if you are extremely obsessed with our evolutionary cousins/ancestors, I suppose you could suffer it.

(This isn't a review of this particular VHS, but of the series itself, which I've seen elsewhere.)