Neanderthals Win Prizes

A book admired for telling the story of a crucial phase of human evolution in a way which fascinates the general reader yet also satisfies the specialist has been named archaeological book of the year in the 1994 British Archaeological Awards.

In Search of the Neanderthals by Christopher Stringer and Clive Gamble (Thames Hudson, £18.95 hb, £12.95pb), narrowly took the title from two worthy runners-up, the scholarly and comprehensive Timber Castles by Robert Higham and Philip Barker (Batsford, £25) and Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier: Vindolanda and its People , Alan K. Bowman's study and translation of the wooden writing tablets which reveal what life was like for the soldiers serving on Hadrian's Wall (British Museum Press, £14.95).