A presentation of the evidence for human evolution: the fossils, artefacts and artwork that paleoanthropologists and archaeologists have discovered and debated during the 20th century. Produced by a collaboration of scientific, photographic and journalistic specialists, the book should be interesting to professional and armchair anthropologists alike. It showcases specimens behind the science of paleoanthropology - the illustrations, including many reproduced at actual size, feature the most significant early human skulls and other original fossils and artefacts.

The theme of this book is the appropriate methodology for the study of the history of life on earth. In particular, it focuses on the interplay between form and structure: the things that we might predict and model and the things we cannot predict -- the arbitrary and the contingent -- which may be as important, or even more important, than the way in which life on earth has evolved.

The contributors are drawn from palaeontology, archaeology, anthropology and human evolution; the timescales covered are from the development of life on earth, through human evolution to later prehistory and historic archaeology. Underpinning the theme of the book is the work of Stephen Jay Gould, who has developed a distinctive philosophy of history concerning the nature of long-term and short-term evolutionary processes, particularly stressing the interplay between structure and contingency.

This seminal study of human bone forms Dr. Mees reveals the skeleton as an articulate work of art. But who is the artist? Using a blend of phenomenological observations and artistic intuition, the author carefully explores the anatomical facts of the human skeleton, with the beauty of many bones are impressively described and illustrated through numerous parallel photographs and illustrations.

This is an extremely scarce and important work. It is profusely illustrated with over 100 pictures and illustrations. Partial Contents: Antiquity and Birthplace of Man; Africa Birthplace of Man; Piltdown Skull; Burial Customs; Ancient Implements and How to Distinguish Them; Primary Man; Non-Totemic or Pre-Totemic and Non-Anthropophagous People; Spirit Worship; Non- or Pre-Totemic People; Masaba Negros; Totemic and Androphagi People; Nilotic Negroes; Totemic Group; Further Proofs that the Nilotic Negro was the Founder of Ancient Egypt; Totem and Totemism; Heidelberg and Neanderthal Types; Tribes of Borneo and the Todas; Stellar Mythos People; Further Proofs of Stellar Cult in America; Central America and Mexico; Stellar Mythos People in Asia; Chinese People; Evidence of Stellar Cult in Africa, Ancient Egypt and Northern Europe; Lunar Cult; Solar Mythos People; Solar Cult People; People of the British Isles; Comparative Wisdom, Ancient and Modern.

The partial skeleton of Homo erectus found in Kenya by Alan Walker, Richard Leakey, and others is truly one of the great discoveries in paleoanthropology, after the world's best paleoanthropologists have diligently searched for traces of Homo erectus in Africa and Asia for a century. In this book, the authors present descriptions and photographs of all parts of the skeleton and accompany these with a thorough analysis. It consists of three parts. The first part covers the geology, dating, paleoenvironments, and the taphonomy of the site. The second part is a description of the specimen and a review of other Homo erectus specimens from the Lake Turkana region. The last part is composed of analytical papers on certain aspects of the boy's biology as they apply to other Homo erectus specimens. "What impresses me most about the volume is that apart from the basic description of the fossil, which itself is of great importance, the editors have sought out leading experts to tackle problems relating to specific issues in the evolutionary biology of Homo erectus. Many of these chapters would stand alone as major contributions. Together, they make a remarkable volume that will become a standard reference." (Robert A. Foley, Professor of Biological Anthropology, University of Cambridge)

Made in Africa: Hominin Explorations and the Australian Skeletal Evidence describes and documents the largest collection of modern human remains in the world from its time period. These Australian fossils, which represent modern humans at the end of their great 20,000 km journey from Africa, may be reburied in the next two years at the request of the Aboriginal community. Part one of the book provides an overview of modern humans, their ancestors, and their journeys, explores the construct of human evolution over the last two and half million years, and defines the background to the first hominins and later modern humans to leave Africa, cross the world and meet other archaic peoples who had also travelled and undergone similar evolutionary pathways. Part two focuses on Australia and the evidence for its earliest people. The Willandra Lakes fossils represent the earliest arrivals and are the largest and most diverse late Pleistocene collection from this part of the world. Although twenty to twenty-five thousand years younger than the oldest archaeological site in Australia, they exemplify the migrating end-point of the human story that reflect a diversity and culture not recorded elsewhere in the world. Part three records the Willandra Lake Collection itself from a photographic and descriptive perspective. Evolutionary biologists and geneticists will find this book to be a valuable documentation of the 20,000 km hominid migration from Africa to the most distant parts of the world, and of the challenges and findings of the Willandra Lake Collection.

Recent developments in behavioural neuroscience and genomics are providing exciting new tools for understanding mammalian evolution. Drawing on a range of disciplines including genomic reprogramming, immunology, genomic imprinting, placentation and brain development, this book examines the leading role played by the mother's genome and epigenome in the successful evolutionary progression of humans from ancestral mammals. Keverne begins by discussing the historic context of the perceived dominance of males and the patriline, before arguing that it is instead the matriline that exerts the dominant influence in shaping the evolution of our brain development and behaviour, especially the co-adaptive development of brain and placenta. Presenting a balanced outlook on the development of sex differences and an alternative to traditional views, Beyond Sex Differences will be of interest to anyone studying and researching mother and infant development.

The contribution of Neandertals to the biological and cultural emergence of early modern humans remains highly debated in anthropology. Particularly controversial is the long-held view that Neandertals in Western Europe were replaced 30,000 to 40,000 years ago by early modern humans expanding out of Africa. This book contributes to this debate by exploring the diets and foraging patterns of both Neandertals and early modern humans. Eugene Morin examines the faunal remains from Saint-Cesaire in France, which contains an exceptionally long and detailed chronological sequence, as well as genetic, anatomical and other archaeological evidence to shed new light on the problem of modern human origins.

For over twenty years, A History of Anthropological Theory has provided a strong foundation for understanding anthropological thinking, tracing how the discipline has evolved from its origins to the present day. The sixth edition of this important text offers substantial updates throughout, including more balanced coverage of the four fields of anthropology, an entirely new section on the Anthropocene, and significantly revised discussions of public anthropology, gender and sexuality, and race and ethnicity. Written in accessible prose and enhanced with illustrations, key terms, and study questions in each section, this text remains essential reading for those interested in studying the history of anthropology. On its own or used with the companion volume, Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory, sixth edition, this text provides comprehensive coverage in a flexible and easy-to-use format for teaching in the anthropology classroom.

A. Bowdoin Van Riper provides an account of how Victorian scientists raised and resolved the question of human antiquity. During the early part of the 19th century, scientists divided the history of the earth into a series of "former worlds," populated by mammoths and other prehistoric animals, and a "modern world," in which humans lived. According to this view, the human race was no older than 6000 years. The discovery of tools with mammoth bones, however, prompted a group of British geologists to argue in 1859 that the origin of humankind dated back to prehistoric times. The idea of prehistoric human origins threatened long-cherished religious beliefs and set off an intense debate among scientists as well as members of the clergy and the educated public. Van Riper chronicles this debate within the context of Victorian science, showing how the notion of human antiquity forced Victorians to redefine their assumptions about human evolution and the relationship of science to Christianity. The new study of human prehistory also crossed the boundaries of scientific disciplines, and the once-distinct fields of geology, archaeology and anthropology were drawn together to study early human life. Van Riper shows how, from the beginning, the study of human prehistory was an interdisciplinary endeavour.

Why do people single out gold, sapphires, diamonds, and other minerals as particularly "precious"? What makes precious minerals "precious"? Drawing from ethnographic and cross-cultural research, this collection of anthropological essays and case studies answers these questions by exploring humans' multifaceted relationships with the minerals they deem "precious." The Anthropology of Precious Minerals addresses the entanglement of humans and minerals, with a particular focus on the practices of scrappers, miners, and hunters as they work to extract value. The editors draw from history, archaeology, and ethnography, and remind us that "preciousness" must always be understood in relation to complex cultural, political-economic, and semiotic systems of value.

Fred Flintstone lived in a sunny Stone Age American suburb, but his ancestors were respectable, middle-class Victorians. They were very amused to think that prehistory was an archaic version of their own world because it suggested that British ideals were eternal. In the 1850s, our prehistoric ancestors were portrayed in satirical cartoons, songs, sketches and plays as ape-like, reflecting the threat posed by evolutionary ideas. By the end of the century, recognisably human cave men inhabited a Stone Age version of late-imperial Britain, sending-up its ideals and institutions. Cave men appeared constantly in parades, civic pageants and costume parties. In the early 1900s American cartoonists and early Hollywood stars like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton adopted and reimagined this very British character, cementing it in global popular culture. Cave men are an appealing way to explore and understand Victorian and Edwardian Britain. -- .

This work deals with Neanderthal subsistence behaviours during the Middle Palaeolithic in Hungary, through the example of Erd site. Very discreet, hunting and mainly scavenging, activities are shown by zooarchaeological study for meat procurement. This is different for carnivores, except for cave bears. The latter, using the place for hibernation, meant a high number of their remains are associated with "Charentian" lithic industry and with those of cave hyena. This carnivore has a significant impact on bone accumulations, herbivores and bears, and shows signs of cannibalism on its congener's remains. Human activities are visible only on a few bones belonging to large ungulates and cave bear. However, no proof supports the proposition of a clear specialization in cave bear hunting on acquiring meat resources (as written by V. Gabori Csank in the monography on Erd published in 1968); a contrario, on scavenging carcasses and/or visiting (actively?) dens for weakened wintering/hibernating bears. These results attest the contemporaneity of a part of the bear carcasses with human installation or presence on the site.

Known for his curly red hair, day-old stubble, and uncannily preserved two-thousand-year-old physique, Grauballe Man - a mummified body discovered in 1950s Denmark - was an instant archaeological sensation. But he was not the first of his kind: recent history has resurrected from northern Europe's bogs several men, women, and children who were deposited there as sacrifices in the early Iron Age and kept startlingly intact by the chemical properties of peat. In this remarkable account of their modern afterlives, Karin Sanders argues that the discovery of bog bodies began an extraordinary - and ongoing - cultural journey. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Sanders shows, these eerily preserved remains came alive in art and science as material metaphors for such concepts as trauma, nostalgia, and identity. Sigmund Freud, Joseph Beuys, Serge Vandercam, Seamus Heaney, and other major figures have used them to reconsider fundamental philosophical, literary, aesthetic, and scientific concerns. Exploring this intellectual spectrum, Sanders contends that the power of bog bodies to provoke such a wide range of responses is rooted in their unique status as both archaeological artifacts and human beings. They emerge as corporeal time capsules that transcend archaeology to challenge our assumptions about what we can know about the past. By restoring them to the roster of cultural phenomena that force us to confront our ethical and aesthetic boundaries, "Bodies in the Bog" excavates anew the question of what it means to be human.

A study of the morphological variation of the skull in children, taking into consideration their age, sex and geographical origin. Extensive research (761 skulls were studied) has resulted in an exhaustive report which clearly fills a long-standing gap in the study of human cranial development.

This book presents the state-of-the art in the analysis of animal movements in the past and its implications for human societies. It also addresses the importance of animal activity and mobility for understanding past human societies and past human-animal relationships through cases studies from different periods and areas. It is the first book to focus on the archaeology of animal movement on different scales - from fine-tuned muscle movements of working animals to feeding behavior and to long-distance movements across landscapes and regions.With the recent development of fine-tuned methodologies such as stable isotope analysis and physical activity assessment, the potential to understand how animals moved about in the past has increased substantially. While the chapters in the volume utilize a wide range of archaeological methods, they are all united by an emphasis on understanding animal activity and mobility patterns as something that has a major impact on human societies and human-animal relationships. Chapters in this volume show that animal activity patterns provide information on multiple aspects of human-animal relationships, including analysis of animal management practices, transhumance, global and regional trade networks, and animal domestication. This volume is of interest to scholars working in zooarchaeology and early human societies.

The culmination of more than a decade of fieldwork and related study, this unique book uses analyses of perimortem taphonomy in Ice Age Siberia to propose a new hypothesis for the peopling of the New World. The authors present evidence based on examinations of more than 9000 pieces of human and carnivore bone from 30 late Pleistocene archaeological and palaeontological sites, including cave and open locations, which span more than 2000 miles from the Ob River in the West to the Sea of Japan in the East. The observed bone damage signatures suggest that the conventional prehistory of Siberia needs revision and, in particular, that cave hyenas had a significant influence on the lives of Ice Age Siberians. The findings are supported by more than 250 photographs, which illustrate the bone damage described and provide a valuable insight into the context and landscape of the fieldwork for those unfamiliar with Siberia.

Alison Jolly believes that biologists have an important story to tell about being human-not the all-too-familiar tale of selfishness, competition, and biology as destiny but rather one of cooperation and interdependence, from the first merging of molecules to the rise of a species inextricably linked by language, culture, and group living. This is the story that unfolds in Lucy's Legacy, the saga of human evolution as told by a world-renowned primatologist who works among the female-dominant ringtailed lemurs of Madagascar. We cannot be certain that Lucy was female-the bones themselves do not tell us. However, we do know, as Jolly points out in this erudite, funny, and informative book, that the females who came after Lucy-more adept than their males in verbal facility, sharing food, forging links between generations, migrating among places and groups, and devising creative mating strategies-played as crucial a role in the human evolutionary process as "man" ever did. In a book that takes us from the first cell to global society, Jolly shows us that to learn where we came from and where we go next, we need to understand how sex and intelligence, cooperation and love, emerged from the harsh Darwinian struggle in the past, and how these natural powers may continue to evolve in the future.

This book examines the first human colonization of Asia and particularly the tropical environments of Southeast Asia during the Upper Pleistocene. In studying the unique character of the Asian archaeological record, it reassesses long-accepted propositions about the development of human 'modernity.' Ryan J. Rabett reveals an evolutionary relationship between colonization, the challenges encountered during this process - especially in relation to climatic and environmental change - and the forms of behaviour that emerged. This book argues that human modernity is not something achieved in the remote past in one part of the world, but rather is a diverse, flexible, responsive and ongoing process of adaptation.

It has been shown through a variety of independent studies that members of the family Hyaenidae are consummate collectors of bones at their respective dens. This in turn has been inferred upon the fossil record suggesting hyaenids as the source for a number of fossil bearing cave deposits, especially in southern Africa. The question of how to differentiate between collections made by hyaenids, hominids and other bone collecting species has also been a highly published field of study. Here we take an in depth look at the bone collecting behaviours of the three extant bone collecting members of the family Hyaenidae, Crocuta crocuta, Parahyaena brunnea and Hyaena hyaena. Paying particular attention to distinctive carnivore gnawing and fragmentation patterns left upon the bones collected, we find that not only are there differences between the species of hyaenids but also within the species. It would appear that the environmental conditions at the time of collection have a greater than anticipated impact upon the taphonomic signatures left behind by the various hyaenid species. We conclude that for any study of fossil assemblages, one must take a multi-disciplined approach and examine not only the carnivore damage, but also palaeoenvironmental factors in determining the probable collector.

Sometimes history seems like a laundry list of malevolent monarchs, pompous presidents and dastardly dictators. But are they really the ones in the driving seat? Sapiens: A Graphic History – The Masters of History takes us on an immersive and hilarious ride through the human past to discover the forces that change our world, bring us together, and – just as often – tear us apart.

Grab a front-row seat to the greatest show on earth and explore the rise of money, religion and empire. Join our fabulous host Heroda Tush, as she wonders: which historical superhero will display the power to make civilisations rise and fall? Will Mr Random prove that luck and circumstance prevail? Will Lady Empire convince us of the irrefutable shaping force of conquerors? Or will Clashwoman beat them all to greatness by reminding us of the endless confrontations that seem to forever plague our species?

In this next volume of the bestselling graphic series, Yuval Noah Harari, David Vandermeulen and Daniel Casanave continue to present the complicated story of humankind with wit, empathy and originality. Alongside the unlikely cast of new characters, we are rejoined by the familiar faces of Yuval, Zoe, Professor Saraswati, Bill and Cindy (now Romans), Skyman and Captain Dollar. As they travel through time, space and human drama in search of truth, it's impossible not to wonder: why can’t we all just get along?

This third instalment in the Sapiens: A Graphic History series is an engaging, insightful, and colourful retelling of the story of humankind for curious minds of all ages, and can be browsed through on its own or read in sequence with Volumes One and Two.