Author: Robert Andrew Foley
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631205289
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
This book recreates the lost world of the hominid species that lived and flourished for around one million years before, and in some cases after, the evolution of modern humans some 200,000 years ago.
Author: Robert Foley
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631170877
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 238
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Book Description
A question of evolution; Why darwinism; What are human beings; When did we become human; Was human evolution progressive; Why africa; is human evolution adaptive; Why are humans so rare in evolution; Why did humans evolve; Does human evolution matter; Appendix: who's who among the humans before; Humanity: a guide to hominid names; Notes; References; Index.
Author: Stefan Herbrechter
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004502505
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 261
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Book Description
The current crisis in thinking the “human” raises questions not only about who or what may come after the human, but also about what happened before. What dark secrets lie in our ancestral past that may be stopping us from becoming human “otherwise”?
Author: Johannes Krause
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0753554976
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
Humanity has often found itself on the precipice. We've survived and thrived because we've never stopped moving... 'Stops you dead in your tracks ... An absolute revelation' Sue Black, bestselling author of All That Remains In this eye-opening book, Johannes Krause, Chair of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Humanity, offers a new way of understanding our past, present and future. Marshalling unique insights from archaeogenetics, an emerging new discipline that allows us to read our ancestors' DNA like journals chronicling personal stories of migration, Krause charts two millennia of adaption, movement and survival, culminating in the triumph of Homo Sapiens as we swept through Europe and beyond in successive waves of migration - developing everything from language, the patriarchy, disease, art and a love of pets as we did so. We also meet our ancestors, from those many of us have heard of - such as Homo Erectus and the Neanderthals - to the wildly unfamiliar but no less real: the recently discovered Denisovans, who ranged across Asia and, like humans, interbred with Neanderthals; the Aurignacians, skilled artists who, 40,000 years ago, brought about an extraordinary transformation in what our species could invent and create; the Varna, who buried their loved ones with gold long before the Pharaohs of Egypt did; and the Gravettians, big game hunters who were Europe's most successful early settlers until they perished in the face of the toughest opponent humanity had ever faced: the ice age. As well as being a radical new telling of our shared story, this book is a reminder that the global problems that keep us awake at night - climate catastrophe; the sudden emergence of deadly epidemics; refugee crises; ethnic conflict; over-population - are all things we've faced, and overcome, before.
Author: Richard G. Klein
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 0470250712
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 331
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Book Description
A bold new theory on what sparked the "big bang" of human culture The abrupt emergence of human culture over a stunningly short period continues to be one of the great enigmas of human evolution. This compelling book introduces a bold new theory on this unsolved mystery. Author Richard Klein reexamines the archaeological evidence and brings in new discoveries in the study of the human brain. These studies detail the changes that enabled humans to think and behave in far more sophisticated ways than before, resulting in the incredibly rapid evolution of new skills. Richard Klein has been described as "the premier anthropologist in the country today" by Evolutionary Anthropology. Here, he and coauthor Blake Edgar shed new light on the full story of a truly fascinating period of evolution. Richard G. Klein, PhD (Palo Alto, CA), is a Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University. He is the author of the definitive academic book on the subject of the origins of human culture, The Human Career. Blake Edgar (San Francisco, CA) is the coauthor of the very successful From Lucy to Language, with Dr. Donald Johanson. He has written extensively for Discover, GEO, and numerous other magazines.
Author: John Gurche
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300182023
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
Describes the process by which the author uses knowledge of fossil discoveries and comparative ape and human anatomy to create forensically accurate representations of human beings' ancient ancestors.
Author: Richard Wrangham
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847652107
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318
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Book Description
In this stunningly original book, Richard Wrangham argues that it was cooking that caused the extraordinary transformation of our ancestors from apelike beings to Homo erectus. At the heart of Catching Fire lies an explosive new idea: the habit of eating cooked rather than raw food permitted the digestive tract to shrink and the human brain to grow, helped structure human society, and created the male-female division of labour. As our ancestors adapted to using fire, humans emerged as "the cooking apes". Covering everything from food-labelling and overweight pets to raw-food faddists, Catching Fire offers a startlingly original argument about how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. "This notion is surprising, fresh and, in the hands of Richard Wrangham, utterly persuasive ... Big, new ideas do not come along often in evolution these days, but this is one." -Matt Ridley, author of Genome
Author: Tom Higham
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300263090
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
A fascinating investigation of the origin of humans based on incredible new discoveries and advanced scientific technology Fifty thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was not the only species of humans in the world. There were also Neanderthals in what is now Europe, the Near East, and parts of Eurasia; Hobbits (H. floresiensis) on the island of Flores in Indonesia; Denisovans in Siberia and eastern Eurasia; and H. luzonensis in the Philippines. Tom Higham investigates what we know about these other human species and explores what can be learned from the genetic links between them and us. He also looks at whether H. erectus may have survived into the period when our ancestors first moved into Southeast Asia. Filled with thrilling tales of recent scientific discoveries, this book offers an engaging synopsis of our current understanding of human origins and raises new and interesting possibilities—particularly concerning what contact, if any, these other species might have had with us prior to their extinction.
Author: Patrick Manning
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108804187
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 379
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Book Description
Humanity today functions as a gigantic, world-encompassing system. Renowned world historian, Patrick Manning traces how this human system evolved from Homo Sapiens' beginnings over 200,000 years ago right up to the present day. He focuses on three great shifts in the scale of social organization - the rise of syntactical language, of agricultural society, and today's newly global social discourse - and links processes of social evolution to the dynamics of biological and cultural evolution. Throughout each of these shifts, migration and social diversity have been central, and social institutions have existed in a delicate balance, serving not just their own members but undergoing regulation from society. Integrating approaches from world history, environmental studies, biological and cultural evolution, social anthropology, sociology, and evolutionary linguistics, Patrick Manning offers an unprecedented account of the evolution of humans and our complex social system and explores the crises facing that human system today.
Author: Michael Bright
Publisher: Words & Pictures
ISBN: 1786038862
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 67
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Book Description
What makes us human, and where did we come from? How did a clever ape climb down from the trees and change the world like no other animal has done before? This large-format, highly illustrated book guides readers through the key aspects of the human story, from the anatomical changes that allowed us to walk upright and increased brain size in our ancestors, to the social, cultural, and economic developments of our more recent cousins and our own species. Along the way, focus spreads take a closer look at some of the key species in our history, from the ancient Australopithecus Afarensis, 'Lucy', to our recent cousins the Neanderthals and ourselves, Homo sapiens. Looking beyond the anatomical evolution of humans, this book explores how our culture and way of living has evolved, from how trails of cowry shells reveal early trade between tribes, to how and why humans first domesticated dogs, horses, and farm animals, and began settling in permanent villages and cities. Through digestible information and absorbing illustration, young readers will be given an insight into their own origins, and what it really means to be a human.
