The Inheritors (Golding novel) The Inheritors (Golding novel) The Inheritors is a work of prehistoric fiction and the second novel, published in 1955, by the British author William Golding, best known for "Lord of the Flies". It concerns the extinction of one of the last remaining tribes of Neanderthals at the hands of the more sophisticated "Homo sapiens". This novel is an imaginative reconstruction of the life of a band of Neanderthals. It is written in such a way that the reader might assume the group to be modern "Homo sapiens" as they gesture and speak simply among themselves, and bury their dead with
Lord of the Flies to join Jack's tribe. Jack's tribe continues to lure recruits from the main group by promising feasts of cooked pig. The members begin to paint their faces and enact bizarre rites, including sacrifices to the beast. One night, Ralph and Piggy decide to go to one of Jack's feasts. Simon, who faints frequently and is probably an epileptic, has a secret hideaway where he goes to be alone. One day while he is there, Jack and his followers erect an offering to the beast nearby: a pig's head, mounted on a sharpened stick and soon swarming with scavenging flies. Simon