Customer Reviews

Early Man (Sutton Pocket Histories)

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This synopsis of our evolutionary roots is great for someone like myself who has only a casual interest in this subject. It is of course a short volume that quickly gets to it's many points with the lastest (circa 1999) findings and research available, in an easy to read writing style. It has been a long time (decades) since I took a university anthropology course, this book brought me basically up to date.

Paul Jordan in this book clearly illustrates our evolutionary relationships with early primates, and onwards with proto-humans such as Australopithecines, Homo ergaster and erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Neanderthalers, Cro-Magnon, and others, up to modern Homo sapiens sapiens. I found the new research concerning mitichondrial DNA fascinating. Jordan also discusses the types of artifacts, including tools and weapons, used by early man, and in addition covers man as the social animal and the invention of religion and art, and many other of the activities of early man, including hunting, dwellings, fire use, and agriculture.

This is a book that is firmly based in reality but I realize does conflict with the world-views of most people, as a result these types of books tend to be not read widely, and that is a shame as this volume is very informative. I would have given this book five stars instead of four, but this book is in terrible need of some illustrations, there are none.