Geheimnisse der Neandertaler

This one hour and 20 minute long documentary mixes paleoanthropology with speculation, as do most programs of this type.

I very much enjoyed the depictions of Neanderthal caves, habitats and tool construction . But as soon as a scientist says "maybe..." I tune out the rest of their thoughts, because it's going to be speculation with no basis in scientific fact, merely extrapolations leading to one potential explanation (among many) for their findings. That is not science. Since the program wanted to present speculations about Neanderthal behavior, it would've been much better served to offer several alternate explanations for each speculative conclusion.

Sir Patrick Stewart is far too old to be the narrator for this program. His voice is shot, and it really shows. I was kind of embarrassed for him.

I do not understand the point of this documentary.

You learn nothing about Neanderthals.

You DO learn way more than you want about the people studying them.

The weird thing is they don't even bother to ask the questions most viewers might have about the subject matter, much less answer them. Questions like how did they live? What happened to them?

Apparently the filmmakers thought Neanderthals liked to roll around in the mud.... I started laughing about it.

There are some interesting sites they visit (eg beautiful caves) but it is too little too late. The scenery plays second to the scientists roaming around in it.

I seriously don't know why they bothered to even make this. It is boring and uninteresting.

The best part was that Sir Patrick Stewart narrated it.

I feel like this was an opportunity to show off more hair and makeup skills based on what we know Neanderthals to look like. We keep getting reminded that they were not a stupid species and they had thoughts and feelings, and the hair/makeup/costume team stepped it up to show that much.

I had read that upon meeting homo sapiens, that that the Neanderthals were actually a bit more advanced than they were, and had already established a way of life that involved jewellery, for example. Neanderthals were creative, and found ways to adorn themselves, and showed humans how to emulate what they knew.

Instead, this documentary shows a rather polished-looking group of homo sapiens coming into contact with Neanderthals, who look like they've all had baths and their clothes laundered before arriving. What this is suggesting in this documentary is that humans may have been a bit more refined. But is this true? This contradicts what other archaeologists have found.

"We all carry Neanderthal DNA" is also not true. This is true for those of European descent, but not African, Asian, or Native Americans.

I did enjoy the re-enactments from the actors who were dressed up to show what a typical Neanderthal may have looked like and to see what they were doing. But I really wished there was more of that. They hinted that they had language, and yet not a peep could be heard from the actors. It's as if they were told not to use dialogue together. Maybe the mouth prosthetics made it impossible? I don't know. But it would have been nice to see and hear them making sounds in conversation, rather than motioning to each other, capturing the quintessential stereotype of the caveman/meat head type.

I also enjoyed listening to Sir Patrick Stewart. It gave the documentary some warmth that added to the idea that the Neanderthal people were compassionate and emotional themselves. As for the information? I felt like so much was being held back, just to enhance the information we already know about with computer work and costuming.

Soooo...neanderthals and denovisians roamed the earth for 300,000 years before home sapiens yet the upwards of 90% of modern invention started right after the middle ages in Europe in the last 600 years. Welp, thank god for Europeans! I would love for thos show to have delved into how the neanderthals lived a bit more.

Seems like i need to meet some rediculois requirements of required character counting quoto mechanism to meet a satisfactory number of required characters that is far too wordy for the review of a dull and exigent netflix mockumentary, so here i am filling a void of time and space and paragraph.

This is exactly what you can expect from a documentary on Neanderthals. I see too many reviews saying it should be more precise and less speculative because "science is not speculative." Do you know how hard it is to even determine the sex of old skeletons, let alone anything else? Archaeologists, in most cases, can't say anything with 100% certainty. Of course, it's speculative. Until you know something with complete assurance, you don't truly know.

With all this said, I'm very satisfied with this documentary. I heard about it from someone who called it a "series," and I was excited to watch something longer than this, but nonetheless, it's totally worth watching. The scenery is absolutely amazing.