See more: An illustrated version of this article will be published within the next two weeks on our CultureLab books and arts blog
EIGHTEENTH-century taxonomist Carl Linnaeus defined over 10,000 species during his career. Few gave him as little trouble as our own. Homo, nosce te ipsum – Man, know thyself – he wrote in 1735, presumably suggesting that no one could seriously confuse our species with another. Around a century after he penned this definition-cum-decree, the first Neanderthal fossils turned up. It was an early sign that human taxonomy was a lot more complicated than Linnaeus suspected.
In a sense,…
