Secrets of the Neanderthals

"Secrets of A Neanderthal" presents itself as an intriguing exploration into the lives of our ancient relatives, the Neanderthals. However, while the documentary offers fascinating insights, it falls short in its tendency to present assumptions as facts.

Throughout the film, viewers are bombarded with speculative assertions about Neanderthal behavior, culture, and interactions. While these hypotheses are certainly thought-provoking, the documentary often fails to distinguish between established evidence and mere conjecture.

One of the most glaring issues is the danger of presenting theories as concrete truths, especially when discussing events that occurred over 50,000 years ago. The limitations of archaeological evidence and the inherent biases in interpretation should caution against such definitive claims. Yet, "Secrets of A Neanderthal" seems to disregard this, leading to a potentially misleading and overconfident portrayal of the Neanderthals and their world.

Viewers would be wise to approach the film with a critical eye, recognizing that many of its assertions are, in fact, speculative in nature.

Patrick Stewart is the narrator of this light "documentary", and the posh received pronunciation accent starts to drone quickly. British accents have oversaturated the documentary landscape. I can't abide listening to them for several hours anymore.

I've read that the Scottish accent is the most desirable in terms of call centres, and that is due to its pleasing lilt.

Anyway, aside from the tedious voiceover, there's really nothing much here, and it seems to be a hair and makeup exhibit more than an educational journey into an interesting topic.

And now I shall keep writing until the required character limit is met. Thanks for reading.

Some of the comments from reviewers are strange in that the reviewers seem disappointed there are assumptions. Of course there are. That's archaeology. I am a post graduate archaeologist and making assumptions is part of the process of interpretation. The modern evidence is showing Solecki's assumptions were partly incorrect and I have no doubt that in 50 years the science will have advanced so that new interpretations and assumptions are made. However, this wonderful documentary is a fantastic introduction to the world of the Neanderthals and what we currently know about them. For instance, it's only in the last 20 years we have established they ate plants. Kudos to the international team that have made these wonderful discoveries and long might they prosper.

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.

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.