Of all the great apes and proto-humans inhabiting our prehistoric world, only a hairless, unamoured and relatively weak specimen would survive to dominate and conquer the planet. How and why this happened is usually answered with these superficial generalisations: Homo-sapiens are the most intelligent primates and humans are the most adaptable. Unfortunately, both statements are almost certainly false. Neanderthals may well have been brighter and homo-sapiens were physically adapted to a very specific and limited niche. It took real genius on the part of early man to succeed. The rise of our...