If you think nature is red in tooth and claw, you've never seen paleoanthropologists. Never has so much fuss been made by so many over so little actual evidence. Unlike most scientific controversies, however, those in paleoanthropology involve seriously emotional issues: nothing less than the origin and nature of humanity.

One of the most fervent controversies in human origins has been over whether human evolution occurred only in Africa (the "Out of Africa" hypothesis), or whether humans evolved on different continents concurrently (the "Multiregional" hypothesis). The bones known as "Java Man" are key for deciding between these theories, and the most important unknowns about them are their dates. Geochronologists Carl Swisher and Garniss Curtis produced the first good dates for fossil humans from Java and set the paleoanthropological community on its collective ear--some of the fossils are much older than anyone thought, others are much younger. In this book they tell their story with the aid of Roger Lewin, a widely respected science journalist and the author of Bones of Contention.

Historians of academic infighting will find Java Man a treasure trove. Rarely has the mask of science been peeled back so completely, to reveal a seething mass of egos, mistakes, lawsuits, and crude hand gestures, boiling around some real, basic questions in human evolution. It's not yet particularly conclusive, but it is certainly not dull. --Mary Ellen Curtin

What is the potential fallout when two "journeymen geochronologists" venture into "the world of paleoanthropology?" As Curtis and Swisher found out, "of all the disciplines in science, paleoanthropology boasts perhaps the largest share of egos, often engaged in intemperate defense of cherished hypotheses," and that's where their storyAmade exceptionally engaging by the talents of veteran science writer Lewin (Bones of Contention, etc.)Abegins. In fact, their tale comprises three stories. The first recounts Curtis and Swisher's attempts to date precisely a Homo erectus skull found in Java, that of the Mojokerto child, and later, an unsurpassed find of 12 skulls, known collectively as Solo Man. The second details the stunning and widely reported implications of their results, including a March 1994 cover story in Time. By showing that the Mojokerto child fossil was 1.8 million years old, Curtis and Swisher proved that our ancestors left Africa nearly a million years earlier than anyone had suspected. Their dates for Solo Man are even more remarkable, indicating that Homo erectus was not a precursor to Homo sapiens but a separate species that, like the Neanderthals, had coexisted with us as recently as 27,000 years ago. Through these two stories is woven the unfortunate but captivating third: that of the back-biting and public sniping, professional jealousy and petty turf battles endemic to any scientific endeavor. The real value of this book is its retelling of our evolutionary history, one that is engrossing and carefully laid out and that will provide to a wide range of general readers as well as anthropology buffs a new sense of wonder about the past. B&w illus.
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