The Dawn of Human Culture 1st Edition

This is a very fun book of popular science. It covers the longitudinal evolution of humans from the split with the great apes about 6 million years ago, to the emergence of Cro-Magnon man as he emigrated from Africa. That part of the book is truly excellent: the authors reason through the suppositions in quite sophisticated arguments that describe the evidence and explain the techniques used to refine it, establishing what we know and what we can't, but never going into academic excess in convoluted proofs and arguments. There are many mysteries that they cheerfully acknowledge, such as the exact dates when Australia was populated or how the Neanderthals became extinct. It is both succinct and masterful.

First, you find the australopithecus and its evolutionary cousins, who began to walk upright and were less dependent on trees for protection and permanent habitat, though their arms were long and their legs relatively short. Their relatives - Gorillas, Chimpanzees, and Oran Utangs - stayed in the forest, while our ancestors moved into the savannah.

Second, you get the Homo Ergaster and Habilus, with the evolution of a thumb that could manipulate tools better as well as larger brains. Their stone tools were crude cutting edges that eventually evolved into hand axes, allowing them (with more nimble legs) to wander farther into the savannah and then to Europe and Asia. Though smarter, they kept to the same set of tools for nearly a million years, hunting in small bands and slowly fanning out to new geographical areas, essentially through what would become Israel. This brings us to about 800-500K years ago, when Homo Heidelbergensis (the common ancestor of Sapiens and Neanderthals) evolves a yet larger brain and far more refined stone tools and replaces Ergaster and Habilus.

Third, there emerges several variations of modern man: Neanderthals in Europe, and Sapiens somewhere in Africa. Evolving in parallel, they mingle some, but remain in their separate spheres until about 50K BCE. Both had brains that are essentially the same weight as the ones we have today, both used tools that varied little over hundreds of thousands of years, and as large meat-eating mammals both were essentially extremely rare, struggling in successive ice ages against predators of superior agility and strength. With extremely rare exceptions, they had no art, did not bury their dead with any ceremony (which would imply social sophistication), and remained slow to develop new technologies or hunting techniques. They were, quite literally, on the verge of extinction on numerous occasions, with perhaps only a few thousand in their populations.

Finally, about 50 K years ago, there is a revolutionary qualitative change in Homo Sapiens that no one can explain: they migrated out of Africa, began to quickly innovate with tools and hunting techniques; their populations exploded; eventually they even reached the Americas. They became the dominant predators, a force of geological impact as apparently they wiped out most species of large mammals wherever they went and even transformed the ecology of entire continents with the advent of agriculture; they had art, jewelry, ever improving projectile weapons, and extremely varied adaptability. About 10 K years ago, they began to differentiate into the races we see today, with the language roots we recognize today.

Now, according to the title, the book purports to explain this revolution. As many reviewers have noted, this occurs only in the last 3 pages of the book, and it is completely speculative, based on logic rather than evidence (which they acknowledge openly). They believe there was a mutation in the organization of the brain that enabled the Cro-Magnons to become fully verbal in their communication, allowing them to reason symbolically and share their ideas quickly, which gave them the edge to survive via communal action. This is extremely disappointing. I mean, you could also argue that they discovered something new to eat as the cause or that they mated with aliens as von Daniken speculated. Given the title, you would think that the entire book would be an academic proof of this concept, which is why I bought the book. This is why I rate this at 3 stars.

I recommend this book for its lucid and beautifully written overview of human evolution. However, do not look for anything really new, because it simply isn't there.

I have read numerous books on the subject of evolution and some present an interesting facet of the evolutionary theory. This book covers the ascent of the human species through the dawn of human culture which appears to have occurred about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. It is believed that several "punctuated events" led up to this remarkable time period when apparently in a short period of time we see signs of a ratcheted up intelligence: invention of music, language, fashioned jewelry and clothing and sophisticated art forms.

Roughly the punctuated events occurred first around 2.5 million years ago, then about 1.7 million years ago, then about 500,000 to 600,000 thousand years ago and finally you have the cultural breakthrough happening about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. I have always found this final event interesting. The authors take us through the timeline of history showing how we may have reached this momentous time period.

Space is devoted to discussing the various dating techniques such as carbon-14, potassium-argon, electron-spin resonance and so on. You will learn of the various cultures or industries that sprang up over time such as the Oldowan, Acheulean and subsequent cultures.

In chapter 5, the discussion turns to Homo heidelbergensis and the branching out into Europe. Chapter 6 delves into the topic of the Neanderthals and their relationship to modern humans. Chapter 7 devotes time to discussing how the modern human form preceded by some time the development of the greater intellectual capacity. We also learn here more about the populating of Australia and Asia.

I have found this book to be a very interesting discussion of the ascent of the human species. The book has many very nice, detailed illustrations to accompany the text. I found these very helpful. If you want to add to your knowledge of the evolutionary theory, I recommend adding this book to your reading list.