October 2022: Svante Pääbo wins the Nobel Prize. The Neanderthal genome is sequenced, and we begin to understand: Our human cousins weren't grunting brutes, but rather skilful, resourceful, and empathetic. What if they didn't go extinct? Could they have survived to this day?

Hidden in the forgotten corners of the world, our human relatives—the Neanderthals—lie silent. Clever beings, gifted hunters, lost to history's pages . . . until now.

Lilly Feron never expected her quiet life running a wolf park in Utah to be upended by a single, dead animal. But when a wolf believed to be extinct with a spear tip lodged in its neck turns up on a highway, everything changes.

The weapon, made from Neanderthal bone only a few decades old, should be impossible. After all, Neanderthals vanished thirty-five thousand years ago.
She learns of a trapper who claims to have seen such a strange wolf, hidden deep in the Bitterroot Mountains. Was it the same animal? Lilly and paleoanthropologist Austin Walker dig deeper, and uncover amazing truths about the existence of Neanderthals. Could they still be out there living in isolation?

As the mystery unfolds, they must wrestle with a gripping secret—one that forces them to question everything they thought they knew about history, humanity, and what lives in the wild. All before the authorities put an end to it.
The past isn't gone. It's waiting. And it's about to make its presence known.

"The Valley of the Hidden masterfully blends anthropological science with vivid storytelling, offering a gripping exploration of human resilience, culture, and belief in a forgotten world. With an archaeologist's precision and a novelist's imagination, J.M.G. Schmidt reconstructs an ancient way of life that feels startlingly real.

Think Neanderthals were just grunting brutes? Think again. This fascinating journey into our deep past will challenge everything you thought you knew about our long-lost cousins."

—Patrick Keeney, Canadian author and journalist

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