ANCIENT BONES

A fascinating forensic inquiry into the origins of humankind.

In this exciting investigation into the long and ancient path of humans, the authors explore the connections among evolution, climate, and environment. It has long been the understanding that the earliest humans evolved in Africa and spread from there to the other land masses. But recent discoveries, aided by advances in genetics and our ability to more accurately read fossil evidence, have suggested many different scenarios. “Europe 14 million to 7 million years ago must have been like a giant laboratory where great apes made huge evolutionary leaps forward,” they write. “Then, as climate conditions became more challenging in Europe and more favorable once again in Africa, these more highly evolved great apes would have returned to Africa.” The narrative spotlights the authors’ pleasing explanatory style, as they describe the evolutionary process and the mechanisms and geographical spread of changing climatic conditions. The authors energetically highlight major discoveries—e.g., Graecopithecus as “the first potential early hominin” who “was closer to modern humans than to modern great apes” or the 6-million-year-old footprint from a biped discovered on Crete in 2002—and consistently show that there is much more to the story than old bones and radiometric measurements. They re-create entire vanished environments; present a vibrant picture of the hand’s evolution for different functions; propose a scenario for the capture and use of fire; and explore the value of running, language, food, and wanderlust. “Paleoanthropology urgently needs new hypotheses so that the data we now have can be categorized in a way that makes sense,” they write. Throughout this eye-opening book, the authors present a number of them, and any reader interested in the study of early humans and their predecessors will find plenty of material here.

An impressive introduction to the burgeoning recalibration of paleoanthropology.