Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

"The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction" by anthropologist Pat Shipman is an enjoyable book. It is well-written and surprisingly entertaining. If I was rating by enjoyment alone I'd probably give it 4 stars. So why am I only giving it 2 stars? Because it's the work of a scholar, published by an academic publisher, defending a controversial hypothesis, and on that front it fails completely. It does not convincingly back up the assertion presented in the title. Shipman begins the book by referring to a paper by Germonpre et al. (2009) that claimed to have identified a new method of distinguishing dogs from wolves through cranial remains alone. The oldest specimen identified as a dog in the study was a 32,000 year old "proto-dog" from Goyet, Belgium. Shipman says that this paper was important in formulating her hypothesis that dogs played a role in the extinction of Neanderthals, as it pushed back the date for dog domestication by "about 18,000 years". Recently, Drake et al. (2015) reexamined the Goyet cranium using 3D morphometric analysis and instead argue that it is a wolf, and not a dog at all. This is a particularly fitting beginning for this book, and acts as a microcosm of the work as whole. Shipman extrapolates wildly from limited and controversial data to make her case. Shipman further relies heavily on the Goyet "dog" in her Chapter 12 discussion of the origins of dog domestication. Other than the controversial work of Germonpre et al., there is almost nothing to support the origins of dog domestication occurring so deep in the past. Indeed, recent genetic research seems to indicate that all modern dogs descend from a population that lived about 11-16,000 years ago (Freedman et al. 2014). Certainly, there could have been earlier domestication events that did not end up contributing genes to modern dogs, however there is as of yet no evidence to support that, in my view. In fact, some of the research cited by Shipman seems to heavily undercut her own arguments. She mentions an isotopic study on Gravettian (22-32,000 years ago) people and "dogs" to determine their diet. The study found that the Gravettian people ate large quantities of mammoth, while the "dogs" relied heavily on reindeer. Shipman stunningly speculates that the Gravettians may have hunted mammoth for themselves, and then on top of that went out of their way to hunt reindeer specifically for the dogs. This line of thought is simply absurd in my view. Hunting is incredibly time consuming and difficult. The idea that these people would have created double the amount of work for themselves to feed their dogs, hunting an entirely different animal rather than giving them the leftover remains and scraps of what they already ate, is shockingly silly and has absolutely no precedent historically as far as I'm aware. A far more parsimonious explanation is that these "dogs" were actually wolves that hunted and scavenged reindeer and had no connection to the Gravettian people that primarily hunted mammoths. With that said, the book does contain some good discussions on invasion biology and Neanderthal populations. Shipman correctly notes that Neanderthals had very small population sizes, making them especially vulnerable to changes in the environment. Neanderthal populations were likely barely above the minimum viable population (MVP) required to survive as a species. Top level carnivores intentionally keep their populations low (often through infanticide and intra-group competition) so as to avoid over-hunting. Neanderthals had small populations and likely extensive inbreeding which may have often reduced fitness through deleterious mutations. Racimo et al. (2014) sequenced the genome of a Neanderthal female and found that "her parents were related at the level of half-siblings and that mating among close relatives was common among her recent ancestors." Shipman does a good job of covering much of Clive Finlayson's work on the changes in the environment during Neanderthal extinction. Neanderthals "were ambush predators that used the cover of brush and tall grasses as they stalked their prey", while later Upper Paleolithic humans "favored the vast open plains of the steppeland and tundra" due to their projectile weapons. As the climate cooled the woodland habitat that the Neanderthals relied on to ambush prey began to recede and the plains opened up. While competition from migrating modern humans may have contributed to the Neanderthals demise, climate change and demographic factors also likely contributed. In fact, climate change or demographic factors on their own could explain their extinction without necessarily requiring the contribution of modern humans. While humans may have played a role in Neanderthal extinction, there is no evidence whatsoever to support the idea that dogs contributed. Even if one accepts that the Goyet cranium is from a "dog", and that the Gravettian canids are "dogs" (both proposals highly unlikely), that still points to the earliest domestication being about 10,000 years after Neanderthals already went extinct (A study by Higham et al. (2014) indicates that Neanderthals disappeared about 40-42,000 years ago). For a superior (albeit quite academic) look at Neanderthals and their demise, I'd highly recommend Steve Churchill's "Thin On The Ground". At any rate, the book was enjoyable, easily readable, and had some interesting information within. The hypothesis is, however, very poorly supported. As a work of credible scholarship it is substandard. 2 stars.