Description

A New Scientist Book of the Year

Prehistory is all around us. We just need to know where to look.

Juan Jose Millas has always felt like he doesn’t quite fit into human society. Sometimes he wonders if he is even a Homo sapiens at all. Perhaps he is a Neanderthal who somehow survived? So he turns to Juan Luis Arsuaga, one of the world’s leading palaeontologists and a super-smart sapiens, to explain why we are the way we are and where we come from.

Over the course of many months the two visit different places, many of them common scenes of our daily lives, and others unique archaeological sites. Arsuaga tries to teach the Neanderthal how to think like a sapiens and, above all, that prehistory is not a thing of the past: that traces of humanity through the millennia can be found anywhere, from a cave or a landscape to a children’s playground or a toy shop.

Millas and Arsuaga invite you on a journey of wonder that unites scientific discovery with the greatest human invention of all: the art of storytelling.

Publisher Review

'Absorbing, amusing, and enlightening; a charming exploration not only of evolution, but of human enquiry and wonder.' -- Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred: Neanderthal life, love, death and art 'Written with humour and lightly-worn learning, this book makes the familiar strange and the strange uncannily familiar; a fascinating journey into our shared prehistory via the shops, galleries, restaurants, playgrounds, and parks of a twenty-first century city.' -- Helen Gordon, author of Notes from Deep Time: A Journey Through Our Past and Future World 'Millas is one of the writers with the most truth per square centimetre of a page.' -- Antonio Iturbe * What to Read * 'We like wise men to explain things to us and understand each other. This is what Arsuaga does wonderfully in his book, a luminous treatise on life, the universe, and human existence.' -- Victor M. Amela * La Vanguardia * 'Juan Jose Millas is the owner of a fantastic territory of unquestionable personality.' -- J.E. Ayala-Dip * El Pais * 'Juan Luis Arsuaga has recounted that prodigious start of human life with all the force of the great chronicles of travel and discoveries, with his double talent as a storyteller and scientist.' -- Antonio Munoz Molina 'Millas takes advantage of the present to tell us about his life, to express his perplexity, which is ours, before the passing of the world ... Navigating through it allows our imagination to travel.' -- Fernando Delgado * La Opinion * '[Arsuaga] is one of the world's leading experts on the evolution of our species, as well as a prestigious scientist and a born populariser.' -- Ixone Diaz Landaluce * ABC *