Between 1858 and 1863, a small group of British scientists--predominantly geologists--demonstrated that the human race was far older than generally believed: that humans had coexisted with now-extinct species of animals (such as the mammoth) in a world unlike the one we now inhabit. Along with the discovery of Neanderthal Man (1857) and the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, these discoveries challenged long-held and deeply cherished ideas about the origins of the human race and humans' place in the natural world. Men Among the Mammoths recreates those first arguments for human antiquity, and sets the surrounding theoretical debates within the context of Victorian science. Using field notes, scientific reports, and previously unpublished letters, it also shows how the study of human prehistory brought together geologists, archeologists, and anthropologists in their first interdisciplinary scientific effort, and how the discovery of human antiquity forced Victorians -- scientists and non-scientists -- to reconsider the ways they thought about the distant past and humans' place in it.
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