Customer Reviews

Extinct Humans

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It's been 20 years since I read up much on the paleoanthropology, so I thought I'd get up to date and read some of the recent books on the subject. One thing I noticed right away, compared to when I was last studying the subject in college, was how our evolutionary tree was now much "bushier," compared to what we knew back then. Now it's thought that there were at least 3 or 4 different species of Australopithecines, and the same goes for Homo habilis, and H. erectus.

Besides this book, so far I've read Paul Jordan's Neanderthal, Richard Leakey's The Origins of Humankind, and Richard Klein's The Dawn of Human Culture. They're all excellent books, but Klein's and Tattersall's were both published in the last year, so they're the most recent, and include important information on the most recent finds, such as Ardipithecus ramidus, although the Sahelanthropus tchadensis discovery by the M. Brunet expedition was so recent it unfortunately doesn't appear in either book.

This book is the most beauifully illustrated of the four books I've read so far. The full-color plates of the different skulls really allow you to connect the comparative anatomy as discussed in the text with the actual features. The book has very nice, glossy paper, so the photos look great, but that also means its the most expensive book of the four. Tattersall's writing is excellent and never gets dry or technical, and the Klein book is also extremely well written. Klein's book also has very clear explanations of high-tech dating methods such as radioisotope dating, thermoluminscence, ESR or electron spin resonance dating, and so on, and he also discusses their strengths and weaknesses, and the technical problems and limitations involved in using them, which I liked.

The book also has an excellent introductory chapter in which the author discusses the early history of comparative fossil anatomy, including the important work of Blumenbach, who founded the science and revised and expanded on many of Linnaeus's notions about taxonomy, especially the definition of the genus Homo, and our species, Homo sapiens.

The Leakey book is now almost 10 years old, and although somewhat dated, it's still worth reading, as its focus is different from these two books. It's not primarily about the comparative anatomy of the different fossil finds so much as what the changes in anatomy from the pre-homonids to the homonids meant for our physiology and ultimately our life-style. Leakey uses the fossil record to show that such human characteristics as a prolonged, helpless infancy, a more active and athletic way of life, delayed sexual maturity, the development of finer tool-making, and the advent of complex social relationships and sophisticated language, all arose during the transition from the Australopithecines to the more advanced Homo habilis and Homo erectus.

Neanderthal, by Paul Jordan, is the most technical and in some ways the most difficult to read, but it's the most detailed and in-depth discussion I've seen on this important homonid and its relatives. Jordan does have some chapters on the other pre-homonid and homonid evlutionary lines, but you don't get to these until you're halfway into the book, so the main emphasis is definitely on Neanderthal and the major discoveries there. Therefore, I would recommend you read either Klein's or Tattersall's book before this one to get a better idea of all the earlier and later species before tackling this book, since it's so heavily Neanderthal-weighted.

Overall, however, all of these are excellent books, and each has its own pros and cons. My preference, and the ones I enjoyed the most, were the present volume and Klein's, partly because their recent publication allows them to discuss the most recent finds, but also I found them to be the most readable and well-written.

Hope my little comparison review of recent paleoanthropology books helps, and happy book buying and reading!

"Extinct Humans" is a fascinating account of human evolution, extraordinarily illustrated with crisp, powerful photographs of fossils which drive home the point that these are the remains of actual beings who have inhabited this world before us, whether they were our direct ancestors or instead "cousins" to our own line of descent.

Tattersall and Schwartz have studied not just the literature on the subject, but virtually all the fossils themselves, giving them a perhaps unmatched command of the variations in the homanid fossil record. They argue persuasively in a clear, well-organized text that modern Homo sapiens is the sole survivor of the many distinct homanid species which have existed over the past two million years, that most of the fossils which have been found represent not ancestors of our own specific line, but relatives which split off in different directions before ultimately coming to a literal dead end. Their discussion of the interaction between Neaderthals and modern humans in Europe (and possibly between Homo erectus and modern humans in southeast Asia) is especially absorbing, delving into questions of technological change, the emergence of symbolic thought, and the creation of language.

The study of human evolution has, well, evolved enormously in the 35 years I have been interested in the topic. "Extinct Humans" is, to my way of thinking, today's best summary and analysis of current knowledge.

Tracing the course of human evolution is fraught with pitfalls. Each newly discovered fossil is scrupulously assessed for its place on the human family tree. Locating it properly is fundamental in understanding how evolution achieved Homo sapiens. Tattersall and Schwarz conduct us on a tour of the history of evolutionary thinking and detail the analysis procedures. The expedition is thoughtfully conceived, offering superb vistas and rewarding discoveries.

Over half a century ago, E. Mayr and T. Dobzhansky developed a "grand synthesis" of human evolution. According to the authors, the earlier workers postulated a "linear" path of hominid evolution. This analysis forged much of evolutionary thinking for decades. Dissenters, however, were always present. Nearly every book on human evolution spends some time describing the conflict between the "lumpers" and the "splitters". Viewing the many of the hominid fossils as but individual variations of general types, the lumpers find abhorrent the complexity resulting from too many species. To them, the family tree is a linear trunk with but a few branches. In contrast, the splitters see fossil variations reflecting a host of unearthed new hominid species. They feel that turning the human family tree into a frizzy bush gives the emergence of Homo sapiens an even more unique place in Nature than it already enjoys.

Tattersall and Schwarz produce a remarkable case for additional splitting. Morphology, the classifying of characteristics of anatomical features, is their operating system. In this book we are offered one of the most complete morphological analyses of human fossils in print. Dismissing the idea of the human family tree portraying a linear sequence of events, they examine in minute detail the bones unearthed to date. Eyebrow ridges, chin sutures and cheek form are critically reassessed in building their case. Homo erectus, once considered a world girdling precursor to modern humanity, demands reconsideration, according to the authors.

The text of this book might prove a bit daunting to newcomers to anthropology or anatomy. Rest assured, however, that this book will reward any reader with but minimal perseverance. You may need to engage in a bit of page flipping in understanding some points. The lavish illustrations on those pages will reward the curious; photographs and drawings clarifying what might seem obscure or unfamiliar. Indeed, this is one of the first popular books illustrating areas often remanded to text in other general books on this topic. The authors deserve the fullest accolades for their efforts in providing intelligible text and graphics. Their concluding presentation of a new family tree for human ancestors is an excellent summation of their assertions.

The authors spend an unexpected amount of ink dwelling on the idea that Neanderthal is not a member of Homo sapiens. It's difficult to understand why they feel the need to flog this so severely, since this concept has been out of mainstream paleoanthropology for some time. Since they fail to identify the target of their sniping, when so many others holding contrary views are disposed of elsewhere, we're at a loss to comprehend their vehemence. The assumption follows that since this is an area of Tattersall's expertise, he's simply taken this opportunity to caper a little. Since the explanation is so clear and accompanied by such magnificent illustrative material, we may forgive them a bit of prancing and enjoy the performance.

While the authors build a convincing case, it abides on a shaky foundation. In seeking support for new hominid species, the omit a definition of speciation. Species are organisms that reproduce successfully. Yet within any complex species, wide variations exist to trap the morphologist. A glance at any kennel with display a wide variation in bones, hair covering and colour, but the inmates remain dogs. While they argue that geographic distribution contributes to speciation [which it does], there's simply no evidence that the human diaspora generated new species. Quite the reverse in modern humans. From this, it seems their
assault on Mayr and Dobzhansky's thesis seems misplaced. No matter how many variations on the theme occur in the fossil record, the lineage of humanity does follow a path into the distant past. As Darwin grieved, the fossil record remains too sparse to trace that path in detail at this time.

Their omission of defining speciation detracts but little from the value of this book. The detailed information and the quality illustrative material makes it a rich addition to the library of anyone delving into the mysteries of human evolution. It's a costly addition, but well worth the investment to those concerned with learning their place in Nature. Their case may be flawed, but their evidence and how they present it is worthwhile.

According to Reuters of December 5, 2000, French and Kenyan scientists unearthed fossilized remains of mankind's earliest known ancestor that is at least 6 million years old, and the find is not only much older than any else previously known but is also in a more advanced stage of evolution. More news from Reuters on March 21, 2001, and we find out that Meave and Louise Leakey are ready to shake the world with their discovery of not only a new species of early human but a new genus as well.

These new findings, as well as many others, support the emerging theory that rather than being linear, the human family tree had many branches, and that present-day humans shared ancestors with other human beings who eventually became extinct.

Long-existed dogmas of paleoanthropology supporting the linear model of evolution are about to fall down, and considering this, the importance of the book by Tattersall and Schwartz can hardly be overestimated.

First of all, of course, the authors provide a surprisingly thorough insight into the existing knowledge of known fossils, and the job done by them is very impressive: Tattersall and Schwartz have obviously studied not only the literature and photos, they have got into a much deeper investigation, discussing a very little detail of an original fossil, and at the same time, with a help of perfect pictures and drawings, giving readers a nice chance to look at the reason of the reconsideration of the existing fossil evidence. The details of morphology brought by the authors into the light are striking and strongly supportive to their point of view. What, however, may seem to be a little disappointment is that Tattersall and Schwartz do not lead us to no less interesting field of studies, namely, the stratigraphic evidence, so we unluckily have less chance to find out more about the geological aspects of all those numerous finds, and, of course, the analysis of the sites' stratigraphy (as a part of the complicated fossils dating process) is somehow left aside.

What's, however, much more important is the book objectively means a clear turn-point in the history of the official anthropology, and paleoanthropology as well. What previously could only be found in the books by Cremo and Thomson, particularly, the possibility of coexistence of different human species at a time in some extended periods of the past, now is clearly stated by officially recognized scientists. No more simplistic approaches to viewing the human evolution, no more frozen-in-time doctrines and narrow-minded announcements. We are moving forward, no matter how deep we were buried under the anthropological dogmas of the last century, and, who knows, maybe soon we will find out that human evolution looks perhaps not even as a bushy tree, but rather as a wood of trees, and it is hardly believable that at the moment we are left with only one branch of a tree.

The cover blurb mentions that the authors have "personally inspected every available fossil". This is the great strength of the book - the only strength, really. The discussions of morphology are very detailed - excessively detailed, IMHO - while the contributions from other disciplines are mentioned briefly or omitted altogether.
When I bought this book, I was looking for a general overview of modern views on the human evolution, including the recent genetic data, recent climatological data from ice core drilling, paleoecology etc. Paleoclimatology gets about one page's worth (albeit a very interesting one); molecular genetic analysis gets the briefest of mentions in the last chapter, while authors fill page upon page with tedious descriptions of who presented what fossil at which conference and how the authorities of the time reacted to the discovery. In discussion of the age of the Nariokotome fossil (pg 134), instead of telling how the analysis was done, authors merely say "after crunching the data in various ways, Smith concluded...". Sometimes it feels like the authors neither know nor care for anything outside their field of expertise (morphology!).
Some of the authors' obsessions become obstacles to understanding the text. For instance, the authors insist that morphology is more important than fossil dating - OK, point well taken. However, as a visual learner, I would have found it extremely helpful to see a chart or timeline with approximate dates of species' existance - but nooooo, they won't do it. They'd rather spend another ten pages discussing morphology or bashing Mayr-Dobzhansky.
Finally, it felt like the manuscript never saw an editor. There are run-on sentences, subordinate clauses that do not agree etc. etc.

After talking so long about what this book is not, maybe I should say what it is: it's a well-printed, beautifully illustrated atlas of fossils. It's a good addition to your library if you are already an anthropologist. Otherwise, it could be used as a complement to a more thorough text.

This is the most beautifully illustrated of the four books on paleontology I've read recently. The full-color plates really allow you to connect the comparative anatomy discussed in the text with the visible features. Tattersall and Schwartz write well and the text never gets dry or technical. Richard Klein's The Dawn of Human Culture is excellent also and has very clear explanations of high-tech dating methods such as radioisotope dating, thermoluminesence, ESR or electron spin resonance dating, and magnetic-field dating, and he's careful to discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and the technical difficulties and limitations involved in using them.

A major strength of the book is discussing the changes in paleontologists' approach to the taxonomy. An example of a major change is Homo habilis, thought to be the first true tool-using homonid. Consider what happened with one of the so-called "type fossils." Type fossils are the ones that the original definition of the species came from. The problem concerned the type fossils of Homo rudolphensis, known as ER 1470, which were quite famous. H. rudolphensis was an important hominid find with a larger cranial capacity than homo habilis, and was considered a more evolved, later species. It's mostly known from an upper jaw and palate and portion of skull. However, it was discovered that the upper jaw mates almost exactly with OH 64, an Australopithecine lower jaw from Olduvai Gorge (OH means Olduvai Homonid). If this is true, Homo rudolphensis disappears as a species and OH 64 no longer belongs in Australopithecus. As the authors point out, that was especially ironic since ER 1470, although it's still currently assigned to H. rudolphensis, was originally put in H. habilis and was the find which finally convinced scientists that there was something to define the species after all, despite the chaos that had reigned up to that time.

Their difficulties didn't stop there. Because of the enormous influence of evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr and the population geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, whose ideas caused paleoanthropologists to think in terms of a single, evolving homonid line from Australopithecus to Homo erectus to Neanderthal to Homo sapiens, paleontologists were for many years reluctant to create new species for their finds, despite the obvious difficulty of fitting so many anatomically distinct fossils into a single species of Homo habilis. As a result, H. habilis became a virtual dumping group for various fossil finds, and only in the last decade were all the different finds reconsidered.

The authors include superb discussions of the fossil and cultural (tool-making) evidence for Homo heidelbergensis and Homo antecessor, considered to be the last common ancestor of the homonid line which led to H. sapiens and Neanderthal. H. heidelbergensis, they point out, also has become a convenient dumping ground for a number of fossils 300,000 to 600,000 years old which have a cranial capacity of around 1200 cc, very close to modern norms. It had robust limbs but more or less modern bodily proportions.

H. antecessor is associated with fossils as old as 789,000 years. It's associated with not so much stone tool-making, which remained relatively primitive, but with evidence at two different sites in Europe of advances for home construction. One site shows a large home constructed of planted saplings drawn together at the top, and the other shows clear evidence of a dwelling with a permanent hearth. Hence, H. antecessor is thought to have domesticated fire.

Finally, there's an introductory chapter discussing the early history of comparative fossil anatomy, including the important work of Blumenbach, who founded the science and improved on many of Linnaeus's ideas, especially the definition of the genus Homo, and our own species, Homo sapiens.

We were all taught in school that human evolution was linear -- Australopithicus evolved into Homo erectus who evolved into a form of Homo sapiens, or us. But all other animals have numerous speciations and dead ends. Why are humans different?

The authors answer: We aren't. They discuss, in detail, the history of thought in human evolution. They go through the fossils, showing many of them in glossy color photos. They conclude that we having only one hominid species around is not the way it has always been -- we are just the ones who won out, and probably eliminated our rivals through competition or other means.

Overall, a great book for anybody interested in human evolution.

I think after the Scientific American review, I was expecting a sort of magisterial overview of the state of the art. Instead, this is a lucid and even entertaining argument for what appears from the text to be a rather extreme (minority) position along the lumper vs splitter spectrum.

Tattersall and Schwartz's basic premise seems to be that hominid evolution should be just as bushy as the evolution of all other animals. Their hobbyhorse is the way that notions of the Ascent Of Man (the Great Chain Of Being) have hobbled paleoanthropology and caused it to lump far too many of our extinct cousins under the more emotionally resonant Ancestor rubric. So far so unexceptional to any reader of Gould et al, and they certainly make a good case for assigning various specimens to their own species, but all too often they present not even a strawman version of the opposition's reasoning.

This is a shame, because the book is well written, beautifully produced, and accompanied by fine photographs and drawings. But it's not at all cheap, and for the money I'd rather have a survey, not a screed. Borrow this one from the library.

The main problem with this book is that it doesn't cover the subject of it's title. This is NOT a book about "extinct humans", it's a book about all the people who look for and find bones of extinct humans.

The book gives (in excruciating detail) an account of all the expeditions that found human remains throughout the world. For example, you learn more about Ramond Dart's life and his expeditions than you ever cared to know. You also hear about all the disagreements and personal animosities various scientists have had with each other over the past few hundred years.

What you don't learn about is the subjects themselves, the so-called "extinct humans." You lean nothing new about homo erectus, nothing new about homo habilis, nothing new about neandertals, etc. You go away not knowing any more about human evolution than you did before and you feel like you've just wasted your time and money.

This book should be retitled: "All The Details About The People Who Look For Extinct Humans."

Paleoanthropologists are a little sensitive about their field of study and how it is overshadowed by genetics and evolutionary biology. As such we can forgive Ian Tatersall for the parts of the book where advocacy for his position becomes a bit strident.

The basic argument of EXTINCT HUMANS is that throughout the evolutionary history of hominids there have been at least 15 species of humans, some of which coexisted. All but Homo sapiens are extinct. Naturally there is no argument about the extinction of other hominids, but other aspects of this position are not universally accepted. There are many other scientists that argue for a linear descent of man from Ardipithecus ramidus through Australiopithicus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus to us. These opposing camps are called "splitters" and "lumpers". Splitters see a great number of less variable species wheras lumpers see few species with greater variation. Ian Tattersall is one of the better known spokepersons for the splitters. As Jerry Seinfeld would say 'not that there's anything wrong with that', and we should applaud the use of these names by scientists as a good sign of their not taking themselves too seriously. That's on the surface though because beneath the cute names are some very strongly argued positions.

What seems to bother Mr Tattersall and what comes through in his book is that the linear descent lumper theory owes a lot to two scientists who were not even paleontologists. He frequently refers to Ernst Mayr and Theodosius Dobzhansky as the source of this misguided theory and in explaining why the splitters have historically been rejected he says: "how could anyone, much less a bunch of paleoanthropologists who were not equipped with the supposedly more biologically informed backgrounds of Mayr and Dobzhansky, disagree with them?" He says that "No one could. Or, at least, no one would who didn't want to be accused of being anti-evolutionary."

There is too much of this washing of paleontological dirty laundry here and it is in fact rather unnecessary as recent fossil finds are much more supportive of Tattersall's views. The recent discovery of Kenyanthropus platyops by Meave Leakey - the 3rd generation of that family of Kenyan hominid hunters has shown that there are in fact not only previously unknown human species but this one might also be a new genus.

Where this book excells is in it's portraying and explaining the fossil record of humans. There are numerous figures, charts, maps and photos. The chapters are thorough with their explanations of the different stages of our evolutionary history. Chapter 6 subtitled the "Great Diaspora" looks at theories of how and when Europe was colonized. Such discussions naturally look at the "African Eve" theory of hominid origins and this book spends sufficient time on it. In summary you could say Mr Tattersall takes an extreme taxonomic view of human evolution; somewhat like a compulsive compiler of lists or an obsession with putting each thing in it's proper place. This is best illustrated with his species classification of Homo fossils as follows: erectus (Asians), antecessor (Europeans) and ergaster (Africans).

Critics point out that humans are more variable morphologically than any other primate species but this variation is within group. Geneticists argue also that genetic variation is much less than morphological variation. Together this seems to say, Kenyanthropus platyops notwithstanding, lumpers with their arguments in favor of fewer and more variable species still have a point.

The irony with science writing is that for every interpretation offered and truth discovered there is always another opinion. It certainly applies here and it means we cant be satisfied with the single view that EXTINCT HUMANS offers. It makes for some further interesting reading.