The chapter consists of an email exchange between Bruno and the Moulinards, prompted by their question of whether depression—rather than other factors—caused the Neanderthals' downfall. Bruno reframes Neanderthal depression as a positive 'spiritual mantle,' arguing that anhedonic brooding fueled their abstract thinking and rich dream life.

Bruno characterizes Neanderthals as collaborative introverts who hunted in teams, kept small clans, and rejected hoarding and growth-at-any-cost mentalities. Their freedom from ambition, he claims, allowed them to pursue art for art's sake, contradicting the 'standard story' that credits Homo sapiens with originating symbolic life.

He distinguishes Homo sapiens, who depicted hunting scenes to exert ownership over what already existed, from Neanderthals, who recorded dreams using abstract marks—lines, dots, cuts—in red and black. Bruno links these two colors to the anarchist flag, suggesting an enduring symbolic duality that should not be dismissed as coincidence.

Bruno reveals that he possesses a 50,000-year-old obsidian disc with a grooved cross, certified as Neanderthal by a Bordeaux archeologist his daughter consulted. He refuses to register it with state authorities, scorning institutions like the 'cité troglodyte' for trivializing prehistory. He concludes that Neanderthals were true artists—conjurers who rendered the unseen seen—while Homo sapiens were mere copiers and frauds.