New book on our fascination in Neanderthals and Calpe sharing ideas in a changing world

I was lucky enough to mingle with the scientific community last week – and some of the world’s leading scientists at the annual Calpe Conference (celebrating 30 years) at the University of Gibraltar. It was on day three that I learnt about a new book on the Neanderthals which will be published in the UK on October 1 titled “Neanderthals Among Us” by Peter Sahlins. The book traces the many faces of our closest relative, from the medieval Wild Man tradition through nineteenth-century race science, museum reconstructions and horror films, science fiction and genetic ancestry testing. On that note alone I wanted to know more.

My intention this week on Alice’s Table was to write something completely different but as I sat through Peter Sahlin’s talk last week, I knew I wanted to tell you about this book, and share my experiences of the conference whilst bringing you a taste of this unique “Neanderthal: The Conference” which brought to the Rock the world’s leading scientists in the field. For over five days they networked and shared their ideas on the changing world of the Neanderthals with latest technological advances bringing new ideas to the table – but one thing they all knew would not change; Gibraltar is the Neanderthal City, where much has been achieved over three decades greatly adding to the global story.

I first met Professor Chris Stringer, Scientific Associate in the Centre of Human Evolution Research at the Natural History Museum in London, back in the late 1980s… … he was back on the Rock 30 years after his first visit (he was last here 10 years ago) and contributed greatly to the conference presenting a paper titled: Still “In search of the Neanderthals”. Chatting to him at the conference he recognised the tremendous advancements there had been in the field, and in Gibraltar since he was first involved with excavations in Gorham’s and Vanguard caves. Then working alongside Professors Clive and Geraldine Finlayson (organisers of Calpe 2026) the excavations of 1986 led to some very detailed information tracing and adding to the story highlighting the animals that were here, the environment, the climate, and how the Neanderthals were living whilst exploiting marine resources.

At the time, he recalled, people did not accept that Neanderthals were using marine resources. Now, the next step, he says, is to find the answer to the question: When did the Neanderthals disappear from Gibraltar? With advancements in technology he believes we are now moving into a “hi-tech time” where all kinds of techniques could be brought to bear on the story of the Neanderthals whilst adding questions such as: When did homo sapiens appear? Did they overlap? Did they even mix here in Gibraltar?

“All of this was unimaginable in the 1980s but we have learnt so much both here and in general in the Neanderthal relationship to us. These are the questions for the future,” he emphasises.

LEARNING FROM BIRDS

Dr Linda Amos, a postdoctoral researcher at Christian-Albrechts-Universitat in Kiel, is no stranger to the Rock either and first attended the Calpe conference in 2015. Since then, she has returned to work at Gorham’s Cave. Inspired to do a PhD on Birds and Neanderthals with material still to be examined from the excavations at the Devil’s Tower Shelter, this year she presented a paper at the 2026 edition on “Neanderthal Bird Exploitation at Devil’s Tower Shelter: Integrating a Legacy of Assemblage into the Gibraltarian Middle Palaeolithic”. She is proof that when people arrive at Gibraltar and uncover our story they leave with a clear picture and often return to work on new projects.

As we chatted, she spoke of what was still “coming out of Gibraltar from the birds found in the excavations” all of which was proving very important in the overall story of the Neanderthals. Other revealing information from the Devil’s Tower Shelter was also looking at the history of research in the field and how sites have been excavated in the past, how to deal with old assemblages and their re-examination when using modern methodologies which are also important.

Dr Amos believes there is a lot of potential to learn more and described Gibraltar’s Neanderthal sites as “a treasure chest”.

Applying new methodologies, she acknowledged, will present a lot more information in the future.

“I believe it is unlimited what we can still get from all the sites on the Rock.”

And she will be back as I hear, with another project in the making soon.

NEANDERTHALS AMONG US

And so, to the book Neanderthals Among Us by Peter Sahlins, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Berkeley. A title which I have to say grabbed me. The book essentially asks the question: Why are we so obsessed with a group of archaic humans who disappeared 40,000 years ago?

In the book, Sahlins says, he presents what really fascinates him: “how the Neanderthals continue to inform our thinking, the place they have in our modern imagination, and why they still matter even though they became extinct 40,000 years ago.”

As science continues to shed further light on our Neanderthal ancestry, the book Neanderthals Among Us also offers a compelling reimagination of what it means to be human - and ultimately, different. The author writes in his preface of his belief that Neanderthals were human beings with culture. But that culture, he explains, is unrecoverable because we know very little about how they thought and how they felt. He tells of how even today with the capacity of new scientific methods, where we can recover the DNA of a 16-year-old girl who at some point 40,000 years ago dropped her necklace, the fact remains that we know nothing more and probably never will.

“We do not know if she made it herself, who gave it to her, if she cried, if she smiled, so, the Neanderthals like early humans became a kind of blank slate in which we project our ideas and imagination about who they were, what and how they did, and how like us or unlike us they might have been,” he tells me.

The Neanderthal figure – this idea of a near human who is not an animal but carries many signs of the animal world into our own world of culture has a universal resonance, he adds, and can be found in many different cultures and places with traces of it going all the way back to the earlier signs of civilisation.

The Neanderthal, he continues, remains an important figure in European culture.

“Whilst we distinguish ourselves from the animal world this animal-like figure has a kind of mediating role which allows us to both affirm our own human sense of human exceptionalism but also to levitate differences amongst us.

“So, when the Neanderthal appears in 1856, I think this cultural baggage is already present to help us think about an idea that changes a lot over the next two centuries – about why we think we are so special in the world, why we think as the chosen species and at the same time how we come to terms with differences among us.” (The Gibraltar Neanderthal skull was discovered in 1848).

Sahlins believes that as our ideas of being human are transforming and changing often by using this figure of the Neanderthal in different ways and in different media at different times we also change our ideas about them.

Even with all the new advancements in technology though, he acknowledges, that there is so much that we can never and will never know – “I come from a field of early-modern history in which in my whole career I struggle with the absence or silence of sources, and my teachers taught us to listen carefully to the voices from the past and read imaginatively from the evidence but to greatly respect that evidence too. When I look at this field I see just how limited the evidence is.”

Conferences such as Calpe 2026, he acknowledges, are very important to push the story forward because even in disagreement it is important that everyone listens to each other.
When 100 years ago Dorothy Garrod uncovered the skull of an infant, he tells me, she was astonished by how modern it was. In part this was because of its huge brain case; never seen before and which approximated that of adult Homo sapiens.

“Already that troubled the existing received wisdom about the Neanderthals as stupid brutes because here was a child with an almost fully developed brain. It was only in the 1990s, in the revisitation of the faunal remains especially that of bird skeletal assemblage, which brought one of the great lessons into public view, and which became a touchstone of thinking about the capacity of the Neanderthals to engage in the symbolic behaviour,” he explains.

“Clive Finlayson’s own work was absolutely revolutionary,” he adds, “and although he was not the only one, still his work on the cultural capacity in Neanderthal – not just on ornamentation but on their cognitive and symbolic capacity was critical in helping us shift away in the modern world from a recurrent and tenacious idea that they were dumb, hairy, stupid brutes.”

Sahlins says he is very open about this in the book and kicks off with the presumption that the Neanderthals had a culture and were human beings with culture.

“That culture may vary from the one we know today but if we look around the world today our cultures are extremely different and varied. To bring Neanderthals into that circle of humanity is not to say they are the same as us but to say they are as different as we all are amongst ourselves.”

The book is written for two groups simultaneously, he points out: “In part for the researchers of the Calpe Conference. The view of an outsider will help them reflect more on the history of their own discipline and practices as well as their unstated assumptions and beliefs. And then for a wider reading public.”

Sahlins would like people to see how pervasive the Neanderthal figure has been and still is today and for us to acknowledge that the inspiration of so much of our culture is in part refracting and reflecting in this prehistoric double.

“I’d like people to acknowledge our obsession and see the many ways in which we have made use of and think of Neanderthals.”

Neanderthals Among Us is a book I highly recommend (out October 1). The Calpe Conference 2026 at 30 was certainly refreshing and reminded us of the importance of the Neanderthal findings in Gorham’s Cave and its Complex of Caves, and The Devil’s Tower Shelter on a world-wide scale.

It once again brought home that we remain at the centre of the Neanderthal story.

Here’s to another 30 years of Calpe.

Matthew Navas knows how to tell a story

Imagine my delight when young actor Matthew Navas texted me to say he was putting on a cabaret before heading back to enter his third year at the Italia Conti Academy where he is undertaking his BA (Hons) Acting (Musical Theatre). Recently, we carried a feature with Matthew and Joe Cuby – 60 years apart but both connected to the film ‘To Sir with Love’. Joe starred alongside Sidney Poitier and Lulu in the iconic movie in 1967, and Matthew starred in the premiere of the musical of the same name on the West End last year. They both played the role of Sapiano.

His cabaret night - Journal Entries: A Cabaret by Matthew Navas - was full of surprises as he presented a selection of musical numbers building a picture following a diary of his first two years at Italia Conti with all its highs and lows. As the doors opened Matthew was sitting at a table writing, adding to his diary his many experiences on and off the stage and with a love interest as well.
Very cleverly he weaved in and out of songs from the musical repertoire – one or two which would have been instantly recognisable to the very appreciative audience made up mostly of family and friends. And other songs (proving crucial to the piece) from lesser-known musicals contributing to the overall effect of the night.

Matthew has a great stage presence, always has from a young age. His confidence on stage is strong for such a young man (but not surprising). He delivers his lines with such wittiness, charm, joy and determination, that he wins you over from the start.

I knew from the opening number (one of my favourites from the Sondheim catalogue) ‘Another Hundred People’ from Company that this was going to be a special night.

The MAG Club stage at Wellington Front is small, the space confined allowing Matthew an intimate in your face experience which worked well and intelligently. He presented us with a couple of renditions from well-known numbers normally sung by women – very brave I say, and they worked. ‘As If We Never Said Goodbye’ from Sunset Boulevard and the Sondheim classic which for me won the night – and where Mrs Lovett became Mr Lovett and dad (Kenneth Navas) forced onto the stage as his son sang about those disgusting pies – the ‘Worst pies in London’ from Sweeny Todd.

In the flamenco styled number from The Drowsy Chaperone – ‘I Am Aldolpho’ he showed his versatility, and his forte as a character actor. He was tender in another old Sondheim favourite ‘Not a Day Goes By’ from Merrily We Roll Along. As in most cabarets these days The Last Five Years featured with ‘Climbing Uphill’, and the beautiful ‘Playbill’ from the song cycle ‘It’s Only Life’ by John Bucchino.

Matthew was joined on stage by Faye McDonald who gave us a beautiful rendition of ‘Crossing a Bridge’ from Anastasia, and then some Disney in the duet ‘Love is an Open Door’ from Frozen.
To end the cabaret Matthew chose an Edina Menzel number ‘Always Starting Over’ from the Broadway musical If/Then. This song carries the line ‘Am I always starting over? In a brand-new story’. Matthew knows how to tell a story. And you believe.

For me that is what musicals are all about… it is all in the magic of believing, it is all in the magic of storytelling. Matthew made us believe and we became a part of his brand-new story. I look forward to the experience of year three and the next cabaret – make it a little longer please, and Matthew you knew I would write this… some Rodgers and Hammerstein please… now with our National Day party and National week of events over... here’s a thought... Why not come back next year as part of the weeklong celebrations with a second cabaret.