Peter Sahlins

Why are we so obsessed with a group of archaic humans who disappeared 40,000 years ago? Historian Peter Sahlins unpicks ‘the homo sapiens superiority complex’ and traces the evolution of our thinking about our long-dead cousins. 

Brutish ancestor or noble kinsman, stupid ape-man or compassionate forerunner, vanquished species or relict survivor… Ever since the discovery of the first Neanderthal fossils in Germany in 1856, Sahlins argues we have struggled to make sense of our Palaeolithic double, just as we have used them to reflect on ourselves.

In Neanderthals Among Us, he describes how an extinct prehistoric human became a scientific and media celebrity, arguing that they survive and flourish today as a cultural metaphor, a scientific battleground, and a mirror for our own anxieties. 

Peter Sahlins is Professor of History Emeritus at University of California, Berkeley. Peter studied early modern French and European history at Harvard and Princeton, then taught for thirty years at the University of California, Berkeley. He has written six books, most recently 1668: The Year of the Animal in France.