Cro-Magnon

How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans

By: Brian Fagan

Narrated by: James Langton

Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

Best-selling author Brian Fagan brings early humans out of the deep freeze with his trademark mix of erudition, cutting-edge science, and vivid storytelling.

Cro-Magnon reveals human society in its infancy, facing enormous environmental challenges - including a rival species of humans, the Neanderthals. For ten millennia, Cro-Magnons lived side by side with Neanderthals, an encounter that Fagan fills with drama. Using their superior intellects and tools, these ingenious problem solvers survived harsh conditions that eventually extinguished their Neanderthal cousins.

Cro-Magnon captures the indomitable adaptability that has made Homo sapiens an unmatched success as a species. Living on a frozen continent with only the most basic tools, Ice Age humans survived and thrived.

©2010 Brian Fagan (P)2010 Tantor

Story read like romantic fiction

The story listens as if it is a romantic fiction novel. The author gives us plenty of information on early man (and neanderthal) life. If you were to listen to the story at random parts, you would probably think the story was a romantic fiction novel. Whenever a science book reads like fiction that makes the book flow marvelously. The author will often start his elucidation on a subject matter by saying "and how do we know that", and then explains how we think we know what was said. Typical examples representative of the time period are used to make the lives of the Cro-Magnon become vibrant through today's modern eyes.

I'm a sucker for prehistory books. This one makes the subject come alive and the reader adds an extra dimension to the story telling.

A Blizzard of Facts

This book is chocked full of interesting and amazing information, but it's not well suited to the audible format. Very lengthly passages consist of dates in seemingly random order. There is an urgent need to put things together in a graphical format to make sense of it all. Suggested graphics:
1. Timetable of ice ages
2. Earliest and latest finds for each homid discussed
3 Maps of theoretical migrations with species and dates

It's still worth it, but really frustrating.

Fascinating and captivating

As some others have said, there is a fair amount of speculation peppered throughout this book. That being said, Brian Fagan is a well respected author of archeology as well as a professor of anthropology. He’s not a quack. It’s safe to say his speculations are grounded in the most up-to-date research available. There’s a lot we will probably never know about our cro-magnon (and Neanderthal) brothers and sisters but a little speculation about certain aspects of their lives shouldn’t deter someone from what is a truly captivating read about the life and times of these Paleolithic people.

Skip "Part I"

This was a decent book, but the first "part" was a waste of time. It began with an uninspiring "lit review" of human evolution. Followed by a summary of his beliefs of Neanderthal society that might have been ripped from "Clan of the Cavebear."
The second "part" redeemed the book as he gave a more compelling summary of Cro-Magnon society (obviously the focus of the book). He followed development of these societies and changes in their technology and inferred what this meant to how their society possibly operated. Wisely, the author did not claim to "know" what their society was like but made reasonable guesses.
I would skip Part I and go directly to Part II for any re-listening to this book.

very interesting

provided much detail about Neanderthals along with Cro-Magnon man. much of the speculation on the stories on what life was like I found very interesting

Cro-Magnon

This is very engaging and interesting, and Fagan's scholaship seems competent, but he keeps lapsing into make-believe scenarios that are fictional accounts of what early man must have felt like or what he was thinking. I find such storytelling out of place in what is a scientific study, even one written for the general public.

Excellent overview of our deep past.

This excellent book goes into the depths of human history and traces the early origins of the first modern humans, the Cro-Magnons, from their competition with our closest (now extinct) ancestors, the Neanderthals, and their development through the upper Paleolithic into the dawn of agriculture in the Neolithic period.
With a primary focus on the European Upper Paleolithic, the author covers the various material-cultural groups that archaeologists have identified based on their physical remains, art, artifacts, and genetic data. The main cultures the book primarily focuses on: (their original names in their own languages are lost to time) are now labelled by paleontologists and archaeologists as the Aurignacian, Gravettian Solutrean, and Magdalenian cultures. The author explores what is known about these cultures, how they lived, the tools and weapons which were essential to their daily life, their hunting practices and relationship to the natural world, and the art they left behind, giving us a small window into how they may have thought about the harsh yet awe inspiring world they lived in at the dawn of the human experience.
Written in 2011, some information is likely out of date. (We now know conclusively for example that humans and Neanderthals interbred, a question which was still unresolve at the time this book was written, it is now also known that Neanderthal was fully capable of language, which was not yet definitively proven at the time of writing.) However, the author provides the best information that was available at the time of writing.
The narration by James Langton is top-tier, and kept me engaged throughout.
5/5.

Amazing Look at Lives of "Cave Men"

I can truly picture and wonder at the "cave-man's" cleverness, now I understand cave paintings FAR beyond the simple explanation by a professor of "sympathetic magic" with some solid theories on their meaning and purpose.

The author is also frank on the many things, besides art, we will never learn.

You'll understand as the archaeologist/writer assumes no prior knowledge.

Described are: how they hunted, tools, interactions with peers (while Neanderthals watched silently). You have permission to use the "TH" as in "think" to say "Neanderthal" despite being corrected to "NeanderTal" by the snobby as real archaeologists use the former normally.

Also, while we've heard of asteroids causing apocalypses, it was astonishing to learn vast extinctions were also caused by HUGE volcanic eruptions (The relatively recent Krakatoa volcano was a firecracker in comparison.) leading to "nuclear winter" type weather for years leading to massive extinctions.

It will answer competing theories on the Cro-Magnon origins.

You'll learn, without boredom, about the lives & progress and unique devices created by these amazing beings.

The book covers several ice age & warming trends over epochs of time. (Mild political note to any who might use that climate change info. to bolster claims that "Warming periods are common and so normal!", to which the reply would be yes, they are....over THOUSANDS of years, NOT over a single century.)

The production is terrific with regard to narration and editing.

This is a must-read as well-written non fiction gets the 5 * distinction. Lifetime learning is fun!

Just Okay

I am very interested in this topic but much of this book was dry and boring. I wish there were some visualizations or PDFs, especially when discussing the cave paintings. As for the narrator, he definitely did not help make this title anymore interesting but he wasn't bad. Had I not been so interested in the topic itself then I would have stopped listening to this title and would have just watched a documentary on the same topic via TV.

Nice visuals

This was a good visual book. A bit long and drawn out but generally pretty informative. I like the archeological findings parts the best.