Kindred cover art

Kindred

Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Kindred

By: Rebecca Wragg Sykes
Narrated by: Rebecca Wragg Sykes
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Kindred is the definitive guide to the Neanderthals.

Since their discovery more than 160 years ago, Neanderthals have metamorphosed from the losers of the human family tree to A-list hominins.

In Kindred, Rebecca Wragg Sykes uses her experience at the cutting-edge of Palaeolithic research to share our new understanding of Neanderthals, shoving aside clichés of rag-clad brutes in an icy wasteland. She reveals them to be curious, clever connoisseurs of their world, technologically inventive and ecologically adaptable. They ranged across vast tracts of tundra and steppe, but also stalked in dappled forests and waded in the Mediterranean Sea. Above all, they were successful survivors for more than 300,000 years, during times of massive climatic upheaval.

At a time when our species has never faced greater threats, we're obsessed with what makes us special. But, much of what defines us was also in Neanderthals and their DNA is still inside us. Planning, co-operation, altruism, craftsmanship, aesthetic sense, imagination, perhaps even a desire for transcendence beyond mortality.

Kindred does for Neanderthals what Sapiens did for us, revealing a deeper, more nuanced story where humanity itself is our ancient, shared inheritance. It is only by understanding them, that we can truly understand ourselves.

©2020 Rebecca Wragg Sykes (P)2020 Audible, Ltd
Anthropology Archaeology Thought-Provoking

Listeners also enjoyed...

Ancestors cover art
The Dawn of Language cover art
Buried cover art
The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being cover art
Animal Societies cover art
The History of the Ancient World cover art
First Peoples in a New World cover art
Neanderthal Man cover art
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language cover art
Nonzero cover art
The Denisovans cover art
The Verge cover art
Ancient Bones cover art
The Selfish Gene cover art
Guns, Germs and Steel cover art
How Evolution Explains Everything About Life cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
Fascinating book! the author has gone much deeper in depth on the subject than other books I've read and really explains what is currently known about Neanderthals...more than I thought we knew! She really brings them to life and breaks down alot of misconceptions that we hold about them. 5 stars!!!

Fantastic book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This book is evocative and mesmerising. The narrator and writer, Rebecca Wragg Sykes, is captivating in her ability to gently mix storytelling with science, to create not just an informative presentation of Neanderthal life, death and culture, but to really bring the pictures of such to life. She does this brilliantly. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

In this detailed and factual litterature Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes sheds a new light upon our kindred: the neanderthals. With modern analysis and archeology we can now learn how much (or rather how little) we as homo sapiens sapiens differed from them. As an aspiring historian the discoveries shared in this book have given me a more profound insight into the lives of neanderthals which have always been an interesting subject for me. If you want to know essentially all there is to know (so far) about our late cousins, this is the book for you.

Enlightening

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Very clear and entertaining explanation. Everything you ever wanted to know about Neanderthals and more. Very well read by the author.

Highly recommended

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

My son is very interested in archaeology and I listened to this book to test whether to buy him the hardback for Christmas. It is beautifully written. I was never bored (which I expected to be) and found the insights and new information fascinating.

Beautiful writing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Thoroughly interesting and thought provoking read for the interested lay person- really enjoyed it, thank you 😊

Thought provoking and inspiring

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I was fascinated from start to finish. I've always felt that the Neanderthal people were underestimated. We can't know how they felt or what they believed in great detail but this well written and highly detailed work is a great start in learning more.

absolutely brilliant read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Thought provoking.
Beautifully written.
This will be one I listen to again, not many like that around.

Brilliantly written and narrated.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I thought this was a really beautiful and well performed audiobook. However, I must admit towards the end it felt like it was going on forever. I am a fast reader and I think this would be better as a physical book rather than audiobook (there are also lovely illustrations inside the physical copy). So overall, I would definitely recommend reading this book, but I would suggest the physical copy :)

Beautiful book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

"Neanderthals were not some highway service station en route to real people. They were state of the art humans, just of a different sort."

I enjoyed the science and research. These were well used to support the author's view that Neanderthals were successful hominids, and undeserving of their" thuggish" and primitive reputation. Their toolmaking techniques, hunting and butchering approach, and genetics were fascinating. The author narrated her book, and did justice to the material, and particularly the place names where Neanderthal relics were found - French cave names pronounced with a French accent, Spanish names, Russian names, all articulated as if they were her native tongue.

Excellent research, logical and eye-opening

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews