The Beginnings of Human Life

The Beginnings of Human Life PDF Author: E. Blechschmidt
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461263476
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description

The Beginnings of Human Life

The Beginnings of Human Life PDF Author: E. Blechschmidt
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461263476
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

Get Book Here

Book Description


Icons of Life

Icons of Life PDF Author: Lynn Morgan
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520944720
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Icons of Life tells the engrossing and provocative story of an early twentieth-century undertaking, the Carnegie Institution of Washington's project to collect thousands of embryos for scientific study. Lynn M. Morgan blends social analysis, sleuthing, and humor to trace the history of specimen collecting. In the process, she illuminates how a hundred-year-old scientific endeavor continues to be felt in today's fraught arena of maternal and fetal politics. Until the embryo collecting project-which she follows from the Johns Hopkins anatomy department, through Baltimore foundling homes, and all the way to China-most people had no idea what human embryos looked like. But by the 1950s, modern citizens saw in embryos an image of "ourselves unborn," and embryology had developed a biologically based story about how we came to be. Morgan explains how dead specimens paradoxically became icons of life, how embryos were generated as social artifacts separate from pregnant women, and how a fetus thwarted Gertrude Stein's medical career. By resurrecting a nearly forgotten scientific project, Morgan sheds light on the roots of a modern origin story and raises the still controversial issue of how we decide what embryos mean.

Born in Africa

Born in Africa PDF Author: Martin Meredith
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0857206672
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Africa does not give up its secrets easily. Buried there lie answers about the origins of humankind and the dawn of civilisation. Through a century of archaeological investigation, scientists have transformed our understanding of the beginnings of human life, although vital clues still remain hidden. In Born in Africa, Martin Meredith follows the trail of discoveries about our human origins made by scientists over the last hundred years, as well as describing the history of scholarship in this incredibly exciting field. He relates the intense rivalries, personal feuds and fierce controversies that shaped the study and perception of Africa, and recounts the feats of skill and endurance that have illuminated thousands of years of human evolution. The results have been momentous. Scientists have identified more than twenty species of extinct humans and firmly established Africa as the birthplace not only of humankind, but also of our own species: homo sapiens, the modern human. Scientific study has revealed how early technology, language ability and artistic endeavour all originated in Africa, and scientists have shown how, in an exodus sixty thousand years ago, small groups of Africans left their birthplace to populate the rest of the world. We all have an African legacy, and in this fascinating and informative book Martin Meredith leads us back to the place where we have rediscovered our common human heritage.

The Origins of Human Society

The Origins of Human Society PDF Author: Peter Bogucki
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1557863490
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 499

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Book Description
The Origins of Human Society traces the development of human culture from its origins over 2 million years ago to the emergence of literate civilization. In addition to a global coverage of prehistoric life, the book pays specific attention to the origins and dispersal of anatomically-modern humans, the development of symbolic expression, the transition from mobile foraging bands to sedentary households, early agriculture and its consequences, the emergence of social differentiation and hereditary ranking, and the prehistoric roots of ancient states and empires. The Blackwell History of the World Series The goal of this ambitious series is to provide an accessible source of knowledge about the entire human past, for every curious person in every part of the world. It will comprise some two dozen volumes, of which some provide synoptic views of the history of particular regions while others consider the world as a whole during a particular period of time. The volumes are narrative in form, giving balanced attention to social and cultural history (in the broadest sense) as well as to institutional development and political change. Each provides a systematic account of a very large subject, but they are also both imaginative and interpretative. The Series is intended to be accessible to the widest possible readership, and the accessibility of its volumes is matched by the style of presentation and production.

The Evolution of Human Life History

The Evolution of Human Life History PDF Author: Kristen Hawkes
Publisher: James Currey
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
Human beings may share 98 percent of their genetic makeup with their nonhuman primate cousins, but they have distinctive life histories. When and why did these uniquely human patterns evolve? To answer that question, this volume brings together specialists in hunter-gatherer behavioral ecology and demography, human growth, development, and nutrition, paleodemography, human paleontology, primatology, and the genomics of aging. The contributors identify and explain the peculiar features of human life histories, such as the rate and timing of processes that directly influence survival and reproduction. Drawing on new evidence from paleoanthropology, they question existing arguments that link human's extended childhood dependency and long 'post-reproductive'lives to brain development, learning, and distinctively human social structures. The volume reviews alternative explanations for the distinctiveness of human life history and incorporates multiple lines of evidence in order to test them.

The Value of a Human Life

The Value of a Human Life PDF Author: Karel Innemée
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789464260571
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Experts from different disciplines present new insights into the subject of ritual homicide in various regions of the ancient world.

Sapiens

Sapiens PDF Author: Yuval Noah Harari
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062316109
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
New York Times Readers’ Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century New York Times Bestseller A Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.” One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us? Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas. Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become? Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem.

The Musical Human

The Musical Human PDF Author: Michael Spitzer
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1526602741
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK 'Full of delightful nuggets' Guardian online 'Entertaining, informative and philosphical ... An essential read' All About History 'Extraordinary range ... All the world and more is here' Evening Standard 165 million years ago saw the birth of rhythm. 66 million years ago came the first melody. 40 thousand years ago Homo sapiens created the first musical instrument. Today music fills our lives. How we have created, performed and listened to music throughout history has defined what our species is and how we understand who we are. Yet it is an overlooked part of our origin story. The Musical Human takes us on an exhilarating journey across the ages – from Bach to BTS and back – to explore the vibrant relationship between music and the human species. With insights from a wealth of disciplines, world-leading musicologist Michael Spitzer renders a global history of music on the widest possible canvas, from global history to our everyday lives, from insects to apes, humans to artificial intelligence. 'Michael Spitzer has pulled off the impossible: a Guns, Germs and Steel for music' Daniel Levitin 'A thrilling exploration of what music has meant and means to humankind' Ian Bostridge

The Invisible History of the Human Race

The Invisible History of the Human Race PDF Author: Christine Kenneally
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458798704
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 477

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Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book of 2014 We are doomed to repeat history if we fail to learn from it, but how are we affected by the forces that are invisible to us? What role does Neanderthal DNA play in our genetic makeup? How did the theory of eugenics embraced by Nazi Germany first develop? How is trust passed down in Africa, and silence inherited in Tasmania? How are private companies like Ancestry.com uncovering, preserving and potentially editing the past? In The Invisible History of the Human Race, Christine Kenneally reveals that, remarkably, it is not only our biological history that is coded in our DNA, but also our social history. She breaks down myths of determinism and draws on cutting - edge research to explore how both historical artefacts and our DNA tell us where we have come from and where we may be going.

A Brief History of the Human Race

A Brief History of the Human Race PDF Author: Michael Cook
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393052312
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
Why has human history been crowded into the last few thousand years? Why has it happened at all? Could it have happened in a radically different way? What should we make of the disproportionate role of the West in shaping the world we currently live in? This witty, intelligent hopscotch through human history addresses these questions and more. Michael Cook sifts the human career on earth for the most telling nuggets and then uses them to elucidate the whole. From the calendars of Mesoamerica and the temple courtesans of medieval India to the intricacies of marriage among an aboriginal Australian tribe, Cook explains the sometimes eccentric variety in human cultural expression. He guides us from the prehistoric origins of human history across the globe through the increasing unification of the world, first by Muslims and then by European Christians in the modern period, illuminating the contingencies that have governed broad historical change. "A smart, literate survey of human life from paleolithic times until 9/11."—Edward Rothstein, The New York Times