Ancestral Passions

Ancestral Passions PDF Author: Virginia Morell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439143870
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 644

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Book Description
This biography of the "First Family" of anthropology reveals how their discoveries, collaborations, and rivalries contributed to our own knowledge of the origins of humankind. In this fascinating and authoritative work, acclaimed science writer Virginia Morell brings to vivid life the famous and infamous Leakey family, pioneers in the field of paleoanthropology: Louis Leakey, the patriarch, who persisted through initial scientific failures and scandal-ridden divorce to achieve spectacular success in digs throughout East Africa; Mary, his second wife, who worked alongside Louis as they made their outstanding discoveries at Olduvai Gorge and elsewhere; and Richard, their son, who ascended to the top of the field in his parents’ wake, only to be threatened with both near-fatal illness and fierce professional rivalry. Morell transports us into the world of these compelling personalities, demonstrating how a small clan of highly talented and fiercely competitive people came to dominate an entire field of science and to contribute immeasurably to our understanding of the origins of humanity.

Ancestral Passions

Ancestral Passions PDF Author: Virginia Morell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439143870
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 644

Get Book Here

Book Description
This biography of the "First Family" of anthropology reveals how their discoveries, collaborations, and rivalries contributed to our own knowledge of the origins of humankind. In this fascinating and authoritative work, acclaimed science writer Virginia Morell brings to vivid life the famous and infamous Leakey family, pioneers in the field of paleoanthropology: Louis Leakey, the patriarch, who persisted through initial scientific failures and scandal-ridden divorce to achieve spectacular success in digs throughout East Africa; Mary, his second wife, who worked alongside Louis as they made their outstanding discoveries at Olduvai Gorge and elsewhere; and Richard, their son, who ascended to the top of the field in his parents’ wake, only to be threatened with both near-fatal illness and fierce professional rivalry. Morell transports us into the world of these compelling personalities, demonstrating how a small clan of highly talented and fiercely competitive people came to dominate an entire field of science and to contribute immeasurably to our understanding of the origins of humanity.

The Leakeys

The Leakeys PDF Author: Mary Bowman-Kruhm
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313062110
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Three generations of Leakeys have dug in East Africa for fossil evidence that answers questions about human origins. Louis and Mary, husband and wife, began what would turn into decades of research and fieldwork, often disproving common theories and beliefs of the time. Son Richard followed in his parents' foot steps, along with his wife Meave, and made spectacular finds as well. Today, Louise, the oldest daughter of Richard and Meave, continues the family tradition with fieldwork in northern Kenya. The Leakey family's achievements have had an enormous impact on our knowledge of human origins and evolution. This biography describes their life in detail, including their discoveries, publications, controversies, and legacy. A timeline, glossary, and bibliography of print and electronic sources supplement the material.

The Leakeys

The Leakeys PDF Author: Angela Timmons-Hanselka
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
ISBN: 1725342421
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 80

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Book Description
Known as the First Family of Paleontology, the Leakey family's fascinating archaeological and paleontological finds in Africa stunned the world and reset prevailing notions about human evolution. Featuring captivating text accompanied by striking images, this book explores the Leakey family's incredible journey from their early-twentieth-century discoveries to the work of their modern-day foundation. It helps learners understand the importance of scientific collaboration. A timeline of significant scientific events and Leakey finds will help learners grasp how valuable the Leakey legacy is. Informative sidebars will draw the readers' eyes toward some of the most interesting archaeological discoveries made by the Leakey family.

Mother Leakey and the Bishop

Mother Leakey and the Bishop PDF Author: Peter Marshall
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199532079
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
In this remarkable piece of historical detective work, Peter Marshall sets out to discover the intriguing links between sightings of the ghost of an old woman in the small English coastal town of Minehead in the 1630s and the hanging of a disgraced Protestant bishop in Dublin several years later.

The Sediments of Time

The Sediments of Time PDF Author: Meave Leakey
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 0358206677
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
Meave Leakey's thrilling, high-stakes memoir--written with her daughter Samira--encapsulates her distinguished life and career on the front lines of the hunt for our human origins, a quest made all the more notable by her stature as a woman in a highly competitive, male-dominated field.

Leakey's Luck

Leakey's Luck PDF Author: Sonia Cole
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
Profiles the flamboyant, tireless British anthropologist whose discoveries in Olduvai Gorge and other East African sites revolutionized theories of human evolution and who made major contributions in archaeology, paleontology, and zoology.

The Leakeys

The Leakeys PDF Author: Mary Bowman-Kruhm
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781591027614
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Three generations of Leakeys have scratched in the baked, unfriendly soil of East Africa to unearth fossil evidence of the earliest humans and their ancient ancestors. This engrossing biography tells their story.

Olduvai Gorge

Olduvai Gorge PDF Author: M. D. Leakey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521105187
Category : House & Home
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
The third volume of the definitive publication of the remains of early man found at Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania.

Fossil Men

Fossil Men PDF Author: Kermit Pattison
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006241030X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
"Riveting. ... Pattison's uncanny ability [is] to write evocatively about science. ... In this, he is every bit as good as the best scientist writers." —New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) "Brilliant. ... A work of staggering depth." —Minneapolis Star Tribune A decade in the making, Fossil Men is a scientific detective story played out in anatomy and the natural history of the human body: the first full-length account of the discovery of a startlingly unpredicted human ancestor more than a million years older than Lucy It is the ultimate mystery: where do we come from? In 1994, a team led by fossil-hunting legend Tim White uncovered a set of ancient bones in Ethiopia’s Afar region. Radiometric dating of nearby rocks indicated the resulting skeleton, classified as Ardipithecus ramidus—nicknamed “Ardi”—was an astounding 4.4 million years old, more than a million years older than the world-famous “Lucy.” The team spent the next 15 years studying the bones in strict secrecy, all while continuing to rack up landmark fossil discoveries in the field and becoming increasingly ensnared in bitter disputes with scientific peers and Ethiopian bureaucrats. When finally revealed to the public, Ardi stunned scientists around the world and challenged a half-century of orthodoxy about human evolution—how we started walking upright, how we evolved our nimble hands, and, most significantly, whether we were descended from an ancestor that resembled today’s chimpanzee. But the discovery of Ardi wasn’t just a leap forward in understanding the roots of humanity--it was an attack on scientific convention and the leading authorities of human origins, triggering an epic feud about the oldest family skeleton. In Fossil Men, acclaimed journalist Kermit Pattison brings us a cast of eccentric, obsessive scientists, including White, an uncompromising perfectionist whose virtuoso skills in the field were matched only by his propensity for making enemies; Gen Suwa, a Japanese savant whose deep expertise about teeth rivaled anyone on Earth; Owen Lovejoy, a onetime creationist-turned-paleoanthropologist with radical insights into human locomotion; Berhane Asfaw, who survived imprisonment and torture to become Ethiopia’s most senior paleoanthropologist; Don Johanson, the discoverer of Lucy, who had a rancorous falling out with the Ardi team; and the Leakeys, for decades the most famous family in paleoanthropology. Based on a half-decade of research in Africa, Europe and North America, Fossil Men is not only a brilliant investigation into the origins of the human lineage, but the oldest of human emotions: curiosity, jealousy, perseverance and wonder.

Origins of Anatomically Modern Humans

Origins of Anatomically Modern Humans PDF Author: Doris V. Nitecki
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1489915079
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
This volume is based on the Field Museum of Natural History Spring System atics Symposium held in Chicago on May 11, 1991. The financial support of Ray and Jean Auel and of the Field Museum is gratefully acknowledged. When we teach or write, we present only those elements that support our arguments. We avoid all weak points of our debate and all the uncer tainties of our models. Thus, we offer hypotheses as facts. Multiauthored books like ours, which simultaneously advocate and question diverse views, avoid the pitfalls and lessen the impact of indoctrination. In this volume we analyze the anthropological and biological disagreements and the positions taken on the origins of modern humans, point out difficultieswith the inter pretations, and suggest that the concept of the human origin can be explained only when we first attempt to define Homo sapiens sapiens. One of the major controversies in physical anthropology concerns the geographic origin of anatomically modern humans. It is undisputed, due to the extensive research of the Leakeys and their colleagues, that the family Hominidae originated in Africa, but the geographic origin of Homo sapiens sapiens is less concretely accepted. Two schools of thought existon this topic.