The chapter consists entirely of Bruno's emails, presumably read by the narrator. Bruno introduces the concept of "ghost populations"—ancestors detected only through DNA traces, never identified at dig sites because their refuse has not survived. He argues that durable materials like stone deceive anthropologists into believing ancient cultures revolved around them, when in fact most of human culture comprises fragile, perishable things: wood, feathers, emotions, tenderness. He gently chides the Moulinards for using the term "stone age" in their question to him about whether stone-age technologies foreshadow destructive modern ones.

Bruno then dismantles stereotypes about Neanderthals (Thals). New evidence shows Thals caught corvids, pigeons, and choughs—the latter simply plucked from caves at night. Italian and Gibraltar findings reveal Thals removed feathers from corvids and golden eagles, suggesting decorative or ritual use, and implying a sophisticated grasp of seasons, trapping, and symbolic thought. Bruno also attacks the assumption that Thals didn't fish, noting fish grease on tools in the Rhône valley predating sapiens, and mocking academics who would rather imagine fish flopping onto riverbanks than credit Thals with skill.

Bruno asserts his own expertise here is direct rather than academic: he learned to handfish during the war, after observing a pine marten tickle a perch into stillness in a stream. He imitated the technique, enduring frigid water until he learned the slow, patient kill. He spent the last year of the war neck-deep in the waterways of the southern Corrèze, catching bream, perch, and trout by touch alone.

Now old, Bruno no longer fishes, but the knowledge gained by touch—identifying species, body part, and size of a fish through his fingers—still informs his thinking. He can imagine multiple humble, artful ways Thals fished, without needing proof. Scientists construct models in absence of proof; Bruno simply lives, and through living knows what is possible.