Important reading not just for anyone interested in these ancient cousins of ours, but also for anyone interested in humanity. - Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens

The New York Times

Beautiful, evocative, authoritative. Kindred is a beautifully written exploration of our fast-developing understanding of Neanderthals and their culture and a compelling insight into how modern science is revealing the secrets of an extinct species who, for 350 thousand years before Homo Sapiens became dominant, inhabited a world “as wide and rich as the Roman Empire.”

Professor Brian Cox, Physicist and TV presenter

Rebecca Wragg-Sykes's fact-packed but highly readable book puts us right with a superbly authoritative guided tour of much new evidence. It's tempting to say, "If you read only one book about the Neanderthals, read this one" -- except that if the next 20 years provide as many revelations about our ancestors as the past 20 have done, she will need to produce just as weighty a second volume.

Richard Morrison, The Times

Blending cutting-edge science with lyrical storytelling, Rebecca Wragg Sykes paints a detailed portrait of our enigmatic relatives.

Professor Alice Roberts, anatomist, author and broadcaster

Written with such pleasing, elegant prose, Kindred is a captivating ode to the subtle complexities of palaeoanthropology – the thrill of discovery, the frustrating gaps in the evidence, the tantalising question marks hovering above our favourite ideas. Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes balances admirable scientific caution with her joyous enthusiasm, and the result is a generous, enthralling history of how we first came to know our ancient cousins, and how we're still getting to know them today.

Greg Jenner, historian and author

'Kindred is a thrillingly full account of what we currently know about the Neanderthals… Wragg Sykes' project is to write about Neanderthals as an end in themselves, not as a failed version of humanity.'

London Review of Books