Customer Reviews

Human Origins: What Bones and Genomes Tell Us about Ourselves

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Paleoanthropology has always been multidisciplinary. The addition of the study of the human genome has simply added incrementally to the disciplines required to fully understand human origins. Genomics is a discipline which could easily have glazed the eyes of the entry level reader without contributing to the understanding of the already scientifically literate. What DeSalle and Tattersall do with Human Origins is to show how molecular systematics contributes to the established interpretation of the fossil record. They tee up the subject by reviewing the state of scientific knowledge in the fields of evolution, geology, stratigraphy, genetics, x-ray crystallography, cladograms... And if you need a remedial paragraph or two on what "science" is, or what a brain is, this is your book.

Pay particular attention to the factors which alter genomes over time. Understand how "genetic drift" and "natural selection" do the hard work in changing allele frequencies. The authors' explanations are masterful, for instance equating drift to sampling error in statistics. Understanding these basics will make it easier to understand the how certain features of early hominid physiology resulted from drift or selection. And you have to love how the authors refer to some of the facile misunderstandings of evolution as little more than "just so" stories (though they omit an attribution to Rudyard Kipling for the analogy).

Most distressing is the revelation that the human y chromosome has been shrinking at a steady rate, and will in a mere 125,000 years completely disappear, leaving women alone on earth, with terminal consequences for our species.

You used to be able to demonstrate your competence in the field of paleoanthropology with an understanding of sagital crests, dental wear patterns, or by your interpretation of the Laetoli footprints. Now you need to demonstrate your understanding of how the dispersion of mitochondrial DNA haplogroups illuminates early human migration routes. Human Origins will bring you up that curve in short order.

The compelling issue in paleoanthropology, the current hot topic, is how human cognitive capabilities suddenly sprang into being. Our anatomical features hadn't changed since our advent, some 200,000 years ago, yet beginning about 30,000 years ago we started expressing ourselves in a way that signified we finally got it. Certainly by 14,000 years ago this capability had become fully developed in Cro Magnon. Other writers have postulated something called a "neural event," meaning some alteration in how the brain functioned. DeSalle and Tattersall offer a more compelling interpretation, that language changed everything and made us what we are today. Language facilitated what the authors call "orders of intentionality," that is to say I know that you know what I know. Before language that was very difficult. Language enabled us to employ our brains for abstract, conceptual reasoning, utilizing for the first time our brain's full functionality, and the rest, as they say, is history.

There is, however, a problem with this book, and it is not with the content, but with its production. Ian Tattersall's books brought many of us up the learning curve on fundamental paleoanthropology, and he is a wonderful guy in the flesh, but even his most devoted fan will be shocked at the number of distracting editorial flaws in this book, in both the text and the graphics. If it's not too late I recommend that the authors stop payment on the editor's check.

I have been waiting for this book to come out for over 18 months. I am a big Ian Tattersall fan and appreciate the way he has been able over the years to make the study of human evolution and fossil man accessible to the lay reader in such books as The Fossil Trail,The Monkey in the Mirror, and Becoming Human. Im my opinion these books give a much better view of the current state of paleoanthropology and are better written. I found numerous typos in the text as well as the illustrations which were poorly put together. The sections on genetics were basic and often redundant- Wade's Before the Dawn explains these areas much better. Other books on human origins which I would recommend instead include Jordan's Neanderthal, Gibbon's The First Human, and Johanson's From Lucy to Language

Thought the book did an overall great job of human origins,genetics,and the fossil record was well rounded. Could be too technical for some people not too familiar with human evolution so I would recommend from Lucy to language by Donald Johnson as a good primer.

When I first paged through this book, it reminded me of a school text book. The book has glossy pages and loads of full color vivid illustrations which I found very helpful.

The authors start by discussing the field of Paleoanthropology and then spend some time explaining genomics. In these chapters one exposed to a lot of related terminology, such as phyletic gradualism, cladistics, introns, and autosomes and so on. It would have been nice if the authors included a glossary of terms to better define the terminology for readers not expert in these fields. Some definitions were brief and lacking.

The section on evolution and human origins was very informative. Here the discussion turned to alleles, RNA, major ways genomes in populations can change with time, an interesting example of the sickle cell allele and malaria, and exaptations.

We then learn about evolutionary trees, the role of archaea in the tree of life and continuing on to human evolution where we learn about the "bipedal apes", the first stone toolmakers, Homo erectus, Homo ergaster, the out of Africa movement and Homo heidelbergensis, the Neanderthals, and the emergence of Homo sapiens.

In chapter seven, there is an interesting discussion on the deterioration of the Y chromosome, something that has been going on for the past 100 million years since the common ancestor of all mammals. There is an explanation of the working of molecular clocks and human migration both in Eurasia and the Western hemisphere which I found very informative.

We finally get into the significance of symbolic thought, cave art and eventually language. The authors made an interesting point in saying, "What we see is very suggestive evidence for the rather late and rapid emergence of symbolic thought instead of the gradual long term honing of the human capacity." I always found the rapid emergence of these uniquely human capabilities to be very intriguing.

Overall, I think the authors accomplished their mission to explain "what bones and genomes tell us about ourselves."

It can not be argued that human origins is a, compelling fascinating glimpse into our evolutionary past that for generations to,come has caused controversy in it,s debate amongst religious churches, for being too judgemental in the way we looked once which,of course is, a huge part of our, eveyday lives in categorizing whom we came from in the culutre, that we live in which is a pretty general idea on what it's based upon which is human evolution the slow gradual step-by-step change from ape to man something that in our philosophical existence we can't accept as created myth.

To their credit and our benefit, DeSalle and Tattersall deal directly with the significance of modern scientific genetic studies to contemporary religious doctrines such as those espoused by the Catholic church and intelligent design (ID) folk. Genetisists posit that life processes such as evolution are equal (the same) for all animals. No favorites here. Continuing, by nature evolutionary change is dependent on the mystery and spontaneous emergence of random mutations. ID and other religions imagine an intelligent, preordained, immutable (no mutations here) design or cosmic plan. A line in the sand cut clear and deep by the informed authors.

I had just finished reading "The Real Eve," "The Seven Daughters of Eve," "The Journey of Man," and "Anglo-Saxons, Picts and Celts," and then tried to plunge into this one. May be a good book, but very hard to read as it is too scientific for me to enjoy easily.

Sandra Casey