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Steven M. Stanley

Children of the Ice Age: How a Global Catastrophe Allowed Humans to Evolve Paperback – August 15, 1998

by Steven M. Stanley (Author)

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A richly informed and inspired description of our evolution from Australopithecus to the Homo Sapiens we are today.

Print length

278 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. H. Freeman
Publication date

August 15, 1998
Dimensions

5.48 x 0.76 x 8.32 inches
ISBN-10

0716731983
ISBN-13

978-0716731986
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A powerful and compelling hypothesis for the most crucial step in human evolution--our descent from the trees to a life on the ground."-Stephen Jay Gould

About the Author

Steven Stanley is Professor of Paleobiology at Johns Hopkins University. A former Guggenheim Fellow, his previous books include THE NEW EVOLUTIONARY TIMETABLE, which was nominated for the American Book Award.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. H. Freeman; Reprint edition (August 15, 1998)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 278 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0716731983
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0716731986
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.48 x 0.76 x 8.32 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,046,809 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,504 in Physical Anthropology (Books)
- #7,655 in General Anthropology
- #13,281 in Evolution (Books)

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N. Beattie

A plausibleinterpretation well presented.

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2018

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A plausible interpretation well presented. At times becomes over extended. The last third could have been contracted.

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Jennifer T. Wolcott

Excellent summary of how humanity became human

Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2013

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Stanley's is the current 'prime theory' of how we became human as the Panamanian Isthmus closed causing the Ice Age and the drying of much of Africa. Well documented and argued, easy language. New information since the publication needs to be added, and he continues science's fascination with chimps rather than bonobos. However, a seminal text.

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Jenny Hanniver

Commercial reviewers tell us that Dr Stanley is a good writer, but he isn't

Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2018

Although commercial reviewers tell us that Dr Stanley is a good writer, he is not! There is too much puffery and far too much repetition of commonly known detail that will put many readers to sleep. I am no specialist in the field, but under another name I've been a published science and tech writer on environmental issues. Since childhood I've read numerous books in paleontology, archaelogy, anthropology and primatology, and am particularly fond of Stephen Gould, one of the founders of punctuated equilibrium. This book is poorly organized, somewhat boring and, to make more sense, should be read from last chapter to first. Although the information seemed up-to-date from the standpoint of the book's age (1996), its creaking age is obvious to a reader of 2018--"pygmy chimpanzee" for "bonobo," overstressing Homo rudolfensis, taking the distinctly minority position of changing Homo habilis to Pithecanthropus something-or-other (he never says, merely puts quotations marks around the "Homo" part), and other anachronisms and oddities. There are several typos which are partly the editors' fault, and of course that pernicious Chapter 1, and elsewhere, in which Stanley toots his own horn too much and comes across as a self-adulated egotist.

I'd just finished re-reading one of the best-written books in the field, SIGNIFICANT OTHERS by Craig Stanford. Perhaps the contrast was so blatant it made Dr Stanley's faults stand out vividly.

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doc peterson

a strong argument for the how modern humans evolved

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2015

Stanley's book carefully lays out a well-reasoned and strongly supported thesis for the emergence of H. sapiens and the lack of evoultionary success of other early hominids. In presenting his ideas, he simultaneously challenges the ideas of other paleobiologists. To broadly summarize the thrust of his argument, Stanley holds that:
(1) the large brain size of the genus Homo is the result of a geologically sudden change in climate (rather than from a gradual evolutionary trend);
(2) Australapithecenes, while evolutionary successful for over a million years, were in a position of evolutionary stagnation prior to the chnage in climate;
(3) the evolutionary advantages of having a big brain came at a cost: "problematic offspring" (Stanley is not referring to teen-agers, but rather the large investment in time our genus must spend in ensuring our offspring survive into adulthood relative to other species of animal.)

The first half of the book details the emergence, success and "evolutionary dead-end" of Australopithicenes - the climate and flora in which they lived, the competition with predators, and the way in which these later affected their later extinction. The last half rather quickly detailed the emergence of the genus Homo (H. erectus, H. rudolfensis, H. habilus, H. neanderthalus, H. sapiens) and his ideas of how and why these hominds were more successful than their antecedents (and why they, too became extinct.) The crux of paper is the "global catastrophe" to which the title refers - the emergence of the isthmus of Panama (which altered ocean currents and thereby altered global climate, and thereby altered vegitative zones). He makes a compelling case.

For those interested in a well-reasoned and accessable argument on human evolution, this is quite good. I would also recommend Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins (MacSci) and Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness by Ian Tattersall, and Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax) for further reading.

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Children of the Ice Age: How a Global Catastrophe Allowed Humans to Evolve Paperback – August 15, 1998

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