Creation Lake

Neanderthals are Creation Lake’s most overt and often used motif. Bruno Lacombe’s fascination with Neanderthal history and culture helps Kushner fully explore The Prehistoric Roots of Modern Social Organization. Bruno, long part of anti-capitalist leftist circles in France, has come to believe that there is no way to reform contemporary society and that real alternatives to capitalism are no longer possible. He has become an “anti-civver,” an individual opposed to organized society who advocates a return to the Neanderthal ways, customs, and social organization. He argues that the scientific community gets much wrong about Neanderthal culture and that Neanderthals were more complex and accomplished than they are given credit for. He claims that Neanderthals were able to navigate, understand the solar system, and hunt smaller game than they are thought to have eaten. These qualities in combination with their small social groups and harmonious living make them, in Bruno’s eyes, superior both to other early hominids and to contemporary human societies. Sadie learns about Bruno’s worldview and the importance he places on Neanderthals by reading emails that he exchanges with Pascal and the other Moulinards. Because Bruno’s emails are many in number and are interspersed throughout the entirety of the novel, they form a key undercurrent to the