Research Catalog

Title

The origin of modern humans / Roger Lewin.

Author

Lewin, Roger.

Publication

New York : Scientific American Library : Distributed by W.H. Freeman, [1993], ©1993.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xi, 204 pages : illustrations (some color); 25 cm.

Summary

• Where and when did modern humans (Homo sapiens) first appear? Who were our immediate evolutionary ancestors? What features distinguish modern humans and how did these features arise? These questions have gripped the scientific community and the public since the mid-nineteenth century, when the discovery of Neanderthal Man and the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species rocked the foundations of long-held beliefs on the subject.
• Many new findings, speculations, and reevaluations have sharpened our views of modern human origins since then. Nevertheless, the controversy continues, as the patchy fossil record and new evidence derived from genetic techniques have given rise to competing theories. Are we the result of a single uninterrupted lineage, with each distinct species of human leading directly to the next?
• Or, do species such as the Neanderthal represent offshoots of an evolutionary tree that died out without leaving successors? Did modern humanity arise roughly contemporaneously in different parts of the world or from a single species in a single location? And how do biological, linguistic, artistic, and technological factors distinguish Homo sapiens from near and distant relatives?
• At stake in the argument is nothing less than the very definition of what it means, biologically and culturally, to be human.
• In this vividly written volume, award-winning science author Roger Lewin describes the discoveries, the intellectual clashes, and the often conflicting interpretations of evidence that have shaped the current debate on modern humanity's origin.
• Readers will learn of astonishing findings (the original Neanderthal bones, and provocative theories (the genetically-derived speculation that we are all the children of a single African female who lived about 200,000 years ago), as well as one preposterous hoax (the Piltdown Man).
• Readers will also see the evolution of the modern science of paleoanthropology, which brings molecular biology, genetics, population biology, linguistics, and other disciplines into the search for the distinctive stamp of Homo sapiens in artifacts and skeletal remains.

Series Statement

Scientific American Library series, 1040-3213 ; no. 47

Uniform Title

Scientific American Library series ; no. 47.

Subject

• Human beings > Origin
• Human evolution

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [188]-192) and index.

Contents

1. Prelude to Homo sapiens -- 2. Prelude to the Modern Debate -- 3. Two Models -- 4. Mitochondrial Eve -- 5. The Archeology of Modern Humans -- 6. Symbolism and Images -- 7. Language and Modern Human Origins.

ISBN

0716750392 :

LCCN

93017647

OCLC

ocm28026798

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries