When and where did modern humans come from? And how, against all odds of the Ice Age world, did they succeed in colonizing the globe? The Journey from Eden is the first book for a general audience to address these questions, and to tell the exciting story of the human conquest of the earth. 100 illustrations.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Fagan, an archaeologist and author of The Great Journey: The Peopling of Ancient America ( LJ 9/15/87) and other books, begins this account of the emergence of "anatomically modern" humans with the genetic evidence for a common human ancestor, nicknamed "Eve," living in Africa approximately 200,000 years ago. He then explores the evidence for two theories of human dispersal. The "Noah's Ark" school finds a single origin in sub-Saharan Africa for Homo sapiens sapiens, who subsequently colonized the other continents, while the "Candelabra" school argues that Homo erectus evolved independently into Homo sapiens in Asia and possibly Europe. Some of this material appears in Michael E. Brown's The Search for Eve ( LJ 2/1/90), but Fagan's book is far more concise, authoritative, and articulate. Readers with some background in paleontology will find this book very rewarding.
- Beth Clewis, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community Coll. Lib., Richmond, Va.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Beth Clewis, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community Coll. Lib., Richmond, Va.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
Brian Fagan was born in England and studied archaeology at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He was Keeper of Prehistory at the Livingstone Museum, Zambia, from 1959-1965. During six years in Zambia and one in East Africa, he was deeply involved in fieldwork on multidisciplinary African history and in monuments conservation. He came to the United States in 1966 and was Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, from 1967 to 2004, when he became Emeritus.
Since coming to Santa Barbara, Brian has specialized in communicating archaeology to general audiences through lecturing, writing, and other media. He is regarded as one of the world's leading archaeological and historical writers and is widely respected popular lecturer about the past. His many books include three volumes for the National Geographic Society, including the bestselling Adventure of Archaeology. Other works include The Rape of the Nile, a classic history of archaeologists and tourists along the Nile, and four books on ancient climate change and human societies, Floods, Famines, and Emperors (on El Niños), The Little Ice Age, and The Long Summer, an account of warming and humanity since the Great Ice Age. His most recent climatic work describes the Medieval Warm Period: The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. His other books include Chaco Canyon: Archaeologists Explore the Lives of an Ancient Society and Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting, and the Discovery of the New World and Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age gave birth to the First Modern Humans. His recently published Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind extends his climatic research to the most vital of all resources for humanity.
Brian has been sailing since he was eight years old and learnt his cruising in the English Channel and North Sea. He has sailed thousands of miles in European waters, across the Atlantic, and in the Pacific. He is author of the Cruising Guide to Central and Southern California, which has been a widely used set of sailing directions since 1979. An ardent bicyclist, he lives in Santa Barbara with his life Lesley and daughter Ana.
Since coming to Santa Barbara, Brian has specialized in communicating archaeology to general audiences through lecturing, writing, and other media. He is regarded as one of the world's leading archaeological and historical writers and is widely respected popular lecturer about the past. His many books include three volumes for the National Geographic Society, including the bestselling Adventure of Archaeology. Other works include The Rape of the Nile, a classic history of archaeologists and tourists along the Nile, and four books on ancient climate change and human societies, Floods, Famines, and Emperors (on El Niños), The Little Ice Age, and The Long Summer, an account of warming and humanity since the Great Ice Age. His most recent climatic work describes the Medieval Warm Period: The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. His other books include Chaco Canyon: Archaeologists Explore the Lives of an Ancient Society and Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting, and the Discovery of the New World and Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age gave birth to the First Modern Humans. His recently published Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind extends his climatic research to the most vital of all resources for humanity.
Brian has been sailing since he was eight years old and learnt his cruising in the English Channel and North Sea. He has sailed thousands of miles in European waters, across the Atlantic, and in the Pacific. He is author of the Cruising Guide to Central and Southern California, which has been a widely used set of sailing directions since 1979. An ardent bicyclist, he lives in Santa Barbara with his life Lesley and daughter Ana.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good story, science, conclusions,
By Avid Reader (Franklin, Tn) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Journey from Eden: The Peopling of Our World (Hardcover)
Brian Fagan is more than fair. In this interesting and at the same time informative work he continually offers multiple answers to questions. Did we become human in Africa and then undertake the journey or did we develop independently? How and why did they travel? Why were the Neandertals so late in populating Europe despite its closeness. The author is, if anything, open-minded, giving all sides to an argument. He beings with a discussion of the mythical "Eve" and who she might have been and where she might have been from. He then discusses the evolutionary aspects and the paleontological finings. One interesting chapter concerned the populating of Asia. The job is made all the more difficult because of the discovery of very ancient man in such places as China and Indonesia who were not homo sapiens. A discussion of the peopling of the Americas follows with the obvious conclusion (based on dentistry) that Native Americans are descended from notheastern Asians. the book contains several illustrations and charts that add to the story.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dispersion of modern humans,
By Howard Schneider (Thornhill, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Journey from Eden: The Peopling of Our World (Hardcover)
Excellent, easy-to-read book about how modern humans dispersed and populated our world. Tracks human colonists to Australia, across the bitter Russian steppe to Siberia and Americas, etc.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
STILL A VALID, SOLID STUDY,
This review is from: Journey from Eden: The Peopling of Our World (Hardcover)
I read this one when it was first published. It was good then. I recently gave it a reread...it still is. Fagan has given us a pretty good look at the peopling of the world as we understand it today. There have been some recent discoveries that may or may not change the views in this work, but overall it is still a solid bit of writing. These recent discoveries deal with time lines for the most part and little effect the author's work. This is a pleasing read, easy to understand and rather captivating. Like any good work of this nature, it leaves many questions unanswered, and that is as it should be. The book does make you think and that is probably one of its greatest strengths. Recommend this one highly.
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