Customer Reviews

From Lucy To Language

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It's about time - a book focusing on the PHOTOS of fossilized hominids. Most books on human evolution entertain us with page after page of text. This book features picture after picture of life-sized hominid fossils. It does contain text - very well written and discusses the fossils at length - a wonderful piece of work - it deserves six stars...

This book is the most complete review of the hominid fossil record I have yet seen.

The first half, "Central Issues of Paleoanthropology", is complete and concise coverage of the science of paleoanthropology, that makes the subject come alive and is generously illustrated.

The jewels, however, are contained in the second part - "Encountering the Evidence". In this section, there is full coverage of the fossil record of every hominid species. The narrative is engaging and always interesting, and the photographs, usually two or three for each type, are simply breathtaking. You won't see a more exciting collection of hominid fossil images anywhere.

My advice: start with this book, then get Johanson's "Lucy" books and Richard Leakey's "Origins" books, to really appreciate the range of debate and the flavor of the competitiveness in human origins research.

If you want a solid, detailed book about the search for mankind's origins this is it. The first part of the book deals with the science of paleoanthropology, the nuts and bolts of how it works, from dating fossils, firepits and artifacts to studying past climates. The book also reveals to us the debates within society about where humans came from and what it means to be human. Will the answers change the way we think about ourselves and how what we will do in the future?
The second part shows us the evidence - bones. Skulls, teeth, fingers. In clear photos, many of them actual size so we can see for ourselves what the text is telling us. It ends with a couple of pages on stone tools and their development.
The two authors did their best to make the book complete BUT they also did not talk down to the reader. They don't assume you know everything, but they don't assume you're a fossil hunter either. For pros or beginners alike.

It is nearly beyond belief that this book exists. Imagine walking into Simon and Schuster and telling them that you want to make a large format, glossy color coffee table book on paleoanthropology, and that you want to spare no expense in its production! Imagine trying to convince them that the demand exists for a large scale printing, thus reducing the unit price to a mere $60! Imagine telling them that every second or third page was to be a full page studio portrait of a skull, or perhaps a mandible! And every single photo in color! Even as I hold the book in my hands, and examine Bill Kimble's life size photo of Australopithecus afarensis, I shake my head in wonder.

Yet the genuinely marvelous feature of this book is its integration of the academic side of paleoanthropology with the eye-catching photography. Whether you are a novice or an old hand, Donald Johanson's comprehensive step by step discussion will inform and entertain you. I'm a serious student of paleoanthropology, yet found new material in the many sections: sexual dimorphism, gestation, maturation, language, and emerging consciousness. I'd never seen photos of cranial endocasts, and there are four from Australopithecus on one page. And there is a great deal for everyone in the reconstruction of the appearance of early humans. The photo of a lifelike Australopithecus afarensis is positively haunting.

The book presents the paleoanthropological coursework in the first half of the book, and presents bio summaries of specific hominids in the second half, along with their cranial portraits. By the time Johanson refers to Homo ergaster's temporomandibular joint, we hardly need the parenthical definition (connects the lower jaw with the cranium).

Blake Edgar's prose and David Brill's photos enhance Donald Johanson's scholarship, resulting in a book that is stunning in appearance and easy to read. It is the state of the art by any definition. Hats off to everyone involved in this masterpiece.

Donald Johanson's most famous discovery was Lucy, a proto-human female barely a meter tall and among the first hominids to walk upright (about 3.5 million years ago). This trait distingusihed her from her knuckle-walking cousins, the great apes, though she shared their smallish brain. This irrefutably proved that human ancestors had the ability to use their hands before developing the large brains that made abstract thinking possible.

THis is just one of the fascinating hypotheses that this explorer-scientist relates in this book for general audiences. Paleoanthropologists use the tools of geology and evolutionary biology to study human origins, an approach that has yielded an explosion of discoveries and new techniques that are described in detail. The authors also present the findings beyond the terrain of paleoanthropology, in such disciplines as microbiology, in which the existence of a genetic "Eve" was calculated, the single common ancestor of all humans of 100,000 years ago.

THe authors also tackle such thorny issues as the million year gaps in the fossile record, whether there is such a thing as race, and whether our brain size makes humans unique in the transmission of cultural learning. Among the book's highlights are the stunning photos by David Brill, a specialist in human fossil photography. Many of them depict life size skulls, which evoke the mystery of who we are as they stare back form the page.

Although too narrowly focused to become a best seller, this book is a masterpiece of popular science writing that requires no special training to understand.

Contemporary Paleoanthroplogy needed this book. David Brill's expert photographs of most of the major hominid fossils invite hours of study in themselves. The text is a tad on the elementary side for those with a serious interest in the field, yet Dr. Johanson has a gift for making powerful arguments out of plain words... But the lifesize photography is the centerpiece. The book's physical dimensions are as they are to accomodate full scale skull photos. To see fossils like Mrs. Ples, Zinj and the Black Skull staring back at you almost as equals is alone worth the purchase price.

For those of us who are armchair archeologists/anthropologists this book is a glorious addition to the world of hominid study. The authors have composed a beautiful photographic album of hundreds of examples of early hominid fossils. Life size photographs of skulls, mandibles, femurs (all the bones that give evidence for upright, bipedal walking) adorn the pages of this glossy, "cocktail table" type book. Some photographs show the skeletons of the hominids in situ (still in the ground, half buried).The accompanying text explains clearly the theories that have been developed based on the fossilized bones depicted in the book. The controversies surrounding the fossils and the theories is presented in a straightforward manner. The difficulties in obtaining specimens and the diversity of opinon in trying to explain the meanings of them are set forth in an interesting and easily read style. The earliest upright hominids date back almost 4.5 million years. Along the way to Homo sapiens have been many ancestors and more than a few dead ends. This book looks at them all and makes an admirable effort to give each one its hour in the sun. This is the best book on early hominids I've ever seen. Nina H. Ward, M.D.

The reviewer below - An.McCracken - is a fake. He reviews countless books each day but he does not read the books, just paraphrases other people's reviews. REPORT THIS TO AMAZON. Click on (Report this) link under the review, next to the voting buttons.

"From Lucy to Language" is an excellent books for those interested in the origins of human evolution. The photos are excellent and create an accurate portrayal of the specimens themselves. Johansen is an excellent pop writer; he creates and excellent overview of each speicmens, although you'll have to get past his nauseatingly pretentious writing style.

If you are looking for a more in depth, academic work, this is not the book to read, but if you are interested in the field, and just want something quick and pretty, this is the book to get. Also makes a great coffee table book.

Don Johanson typically gives great respect to the data and unfolding evidence of his most fascinating field of paleoanthropology. Lots of good up to date detail. But this book is different from all others in that David Brill's photos are truly mind-blowing...as close as one can come to viewing the fossils in real life. A must-have for any hominid-junkie.