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In this latest volume in the Human Evolution Series, Erik Trinkaus
and his co-authors synthesize the research and findings concerning
the human remains found at the Sunghir archaeological site. It has
long been apparent to those in the field of paleoanthropology that
the human fossil remains from the site of Sunghir are an important
part of the human paleoanthropological record, and that these
fossil remains have the potential to provide substantial data and
inferences concerning human biology and behavior, both during the
earlier Upper Paleolithic and concerning the early phases of human
occupation of high latitude continental Eurasia. But despite many
separate investigations and published studies on the site and its
findings, a single and definitive volume does not yet exist on the
subject. This book combines the expertise of four
paleoanthropologists to provide a comprehensive description and
paleobiological analysis of the Sunghir human remains. Since 1990,
Trinkaus et al. have had access to the Sunghir site and its
findings, and the authors have published frequently on the topic.
The book places these human fossil remains in context with other
Late Pleistocene humans, utilizing numerous comparative charts,
graphs, and figures. As such, the book is highly illustrated, in
color. Trinkaus and his co-authors outline the many advances in
paleoanthropology that these remains have helped to bring about,
examining the Sunghir site from all angles.
In 1856, at the very time when Charles Darwin was writing The
Origin of Species, which would popularize the revolutionary concept
of evolution worldwide, the fossilized remains of a stocky,
powerful, human-like creature were discovered in a German valley
called Neandertal. The bones were believed by some scientists to
have belonged to a primitive version of modern man. But how old
were they? Thus began a controversy that has continued to this day,
swirling around the origins and interpretation of the Neandertals,
placing them at every possible location on our family tree. Now,
Erik Trinkaus, one of the world's leading experts on Neandertals,
has collaborated with the noted scientist and writer Pat Shipman on
a sweeping and definitive examination of what we know and how we've
come to know it. Neandertals, who clearly represent a phase of
human evolution, possessed their own unique qualities that made
them neither chimpanzee nor modern human. The nature of those
qualities - and how Neandertals were discovered, debated, studied,
and analyzed over the years - is presented with authority and
anecdotal richness. The story ranges from the days of Georges
Cuvier (known as "Magician of the Charnel House" for his ability to
reconstruct from piles of bones a whole animal skeleton) to the
latest researchers whose work with DNA has raised the possibility
that we are all descended from one African woman (the "Eve"
theory). The controversy carries over from the elite scientific
societies of Victorian England and nineteenth-century universities
in France and Germany to American laboratories. Along the way there
are anthropologists painfully accumulating specimens in digs as
distant as Belgium and SouthAfrica, Java and the hills outside
Beijing, gradually building up a substantial base for legitimate
theorizing (illegitimate, too - the tale of the Piltdown hoax is an
enlightening interlude). A contentious, combative saga unfolds of
vested interests and accepted wisdom clashing
In 1856, at the very time when Charles Darwin was writing The
Origin of Species, which would popularize the revolutionary concept
of evolution worldwide, the fossilized remains of a stocky,
powerful, human-like creature were discovered in a German valley
called Neandertal. The bones were believed by some scientists to
have belonged to a primitive version of modern man. But how old
were they? Thus began a controversy that has continued to this day,
swirling around the origins and interpretation of the Neandertals,
placing them at every possible location on our family tree. Now,
Erik Trinkaus, one of the world's leading experts on Neandertals,
has collaborated with the noted scientist and writer Pat Shipman on
a sweeping and definitive examination of what we know and how we've
come to know it. Neandertals, who clearly represent a phase of
human evolution, possessed their own unique qualities that made
them neither chimpanzee nor modern human. The nature of those
qualities - and how Neandertals were discovered, debated, studied,
and analyzed over the years - is presented with authority and
anecdotal richness. The story ranges from the days of Georges
Cuvier (known as "Magician of the Charnel House" for his ability to
reconstruct from piles of bones a whole animal skeleton) to the
latest researchers whose work with DNA has raised the possibility
that we are all descended from one African woman (the "Eve"
theory). The controversy carries over from the elite scientific
societies of Victorian England and nineteenth-century universities
in France and Germany to American laboratories. Along the way there
are anthropologists painfully accumulating specimens in digs as
distant as Belgium and SouthAfrica, Java and the hills outside
Beijing, gradually building up a substantial base for legitimate
theorizing (illegitimate, too - the tale of the Piltdown hoax is an
enlightening interlude). A contentious, combative saga unfolds of
vested interests and accepted wisdom clashing
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