Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes

where does Nanderthal fit into our lineage and what happened to him

This ia a mixed review.. the passages about the science are terrific. They describe in great detail the process of extracting the DNA from bones. We follow Dr. Paabo and his team as they progress through the various stages of experimentation and finally results in obtaining the elusive molecule. However, I didn't need to know so much about Dr. Paabo's personal life, and his descriptions of his fellow scientists (brilliant, intelligent, etc.) became tedious and repetitive. That said, the book is a great read.

Very technical and beyond the non scientific minded person without adequate education....but , if you read carefully and study it it works well for you!

This book is an engaging storytelling of scientific discovery. Similar to many, I became interested in it because of Paabo's Nobel Prize in medicine in 2022. This book not only tells how he founded the discipline of paleogenetics and his work on the genetic relationship between humans and neanderthals, but also has a semi-biographical account of his career.

Paabo studied medicine but had an interest in egyptology at an early age. Apparently, no one asked the question of whether DNA can survive in a mummy before him. It took someone with molecular biology background and an interest in egyptology to ask that question. As a result, Paabo became the first person who performed DNA analysis on a mummy which led to further genome analysis of ancient humans, thereby inaugurating the discipline of paleogenetics.
At first Paabo was conducting DNA study of ancient humans such as mummies, but only to realise their DNA is not too different from modern human making it technically difficult. His goal was to understand modern human genetically, and he realised that Neanderthals are close relatives of modern human and have a close but different DNA. So it is not only more feasible technically to study the genetics of Neanderthals but also worthwhile in shedding light on the genetic relationship between Neanderthals and humans.

The book recounted many anecdotes of trying to find suitable and enough neanderthal bones for the study from many different museums from former East Germany, Spain, to Croatia. He discussed the politics of working through old museum bureaucracy to acquire the bones. In terms of DNA extraction method, he introduced the PCR polymerase chain reaction method to sequence neanderthal, and eventually designed a machine to carry out the PCR test. He also reveals to the reader the great obstacle of contamination from the environment for any paleogenetic test. Contamination can be reduced by performing it in clean rooms and by repetition to check for contamination. Much of paleogenetic lab work is to work the contamination problem from environment and chemical degeneration over time. He led his readers from his first discovery of the neanderthal genome in 1994 using PCR test to his final mapping of the neanderthal genome in a large group project in 2009 using more advanced pyrosequencing machine that can sequence 100s of thousands DNA fragments at a time. His research shows modern humans from Africa flowed from Africa to Mideast and Europe, and interbred with Neanderthals there around 40k years ago which subsequently carried Neanderthals DNA to China and Papua new Guinea where there were no Neanderthals existed.

The book is full of research stories and scientific methods revolution, and the challenges to lead a major scientific project.

I had hoped to muddle through the science but it was very understandable and enlightening.

This book describes the persistent pursuit by the author in establishing completely new methodologies to expand his ideas of the interactions between co-existing Neanderthals and humans some 40,000 years ago before the Neanderthals became extinct. Many anthropologists were persuaded that no cross-breeding took place. The author, Savant Paabo, proved that it happened, by finding common strings of DNA thru his works with 'Ancient Genes ' Why the Neanderthals went extinct still is subject to debate. You may enjoy a follow-up book "Who We Are and How We got Here" by David Reich. He and his team worked with the original exploratory searchers. It too is an extremely enlightening book

The book is excellent however, to many personal histories distract from the main theme (the genome of Neardertal) which could have been addressed more succinctly

Very interesting book.

Met the author Svante Paabo in person and saw documentaries about his research like in this book on TED. Very good and interesting!

An exciting chapter in the study of evolution told in the way that most people will find accessible. Also a gripping tale of tenacious team research.