Kermit Pattison

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

California

The Quest for the Oldest Skeleton and the Origins of Humankind

"Fossil Men is the riveting science-adventure story of the brilliant team who discovered the "Ardi" skeleton, a human more than a million years older than the famous Lucy, and their 20-year quest to redefine our understanding of human evolution"--

Fossil Men

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A behind-the-scenes account of the shocking discovery of the skeleton of "Ardi," a human ancestor far older than Lucy - a find that shook the world of paleoanthropology and radically altered our understanding of human evolution. In 1994, a team led by fossil-hunting legend Tim White--"the Steve Jobs of paleoanthropology"--uncovered the bones of a human ancestor in Ethiopia's Afar region. Radiometric dating of nearby rocks indicated the skeleton, classified as Ardipithecus ramidus, was 4.4 million years old, more than a million years older than "Lucy," then the oldest known human ancestor. The findings challenged many assumptions about human evolution--how we started walking upright, how we evolved our nimble hands, and, most significantly, whether we were descended from an ancestor that resembled today's chimpanzee--and repudiated a half-century of paleoanthropological orthodoxy. Fossil Men is the first full-length exploration of Ardi, the fossil men who found her, and her impact on what we know about the origins of the human species. It is a scientific detective story played out in anatomy and the natural history of the human body. Kermit Pattison brings into focus a cast of eccentric, obsessive scientists, including one of the world's greatest fossil hunters, Tim White--an exacting and unforgiving fossil hunter whose virtuoso skills in the field were matched only by his propensity for making enemies; Gen Suwa, a Japanese savant who sometimes didn't bother going home at night to devote more hours to science; Owen Lovejoy, a onetime creationist-turned-paleoanthropologist; Berhane Asfaw, who survived imprisonment and torture to become Ethiopia's most senior paleoanthropologist and who fought for African scientists to gain equal footing in the study of human origins; and the Leakeys, for decades the most famous family in paleoanthropology. An intriguing tale of scientific discovery, obsession and rivalry that moves from the sun-baked desert of Africa and a nation caught in a brutal civil war, to modern high-tech labs and academic lecture halls, Fossil Men is popular science at its best, and a must read for fans of Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson.

Category - Non Fiction / Science

Format - Hardcover

Condition - Poor

Listed - 3 months ago

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Ships From - California

Est. Publication Date - Aug 2021

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Category - Non Fiction / Science

Format - Hardcover

Condition - Poor

Listed - 3 months ago

Views - 1

Ships From - California

Est. Publication Date - Aug 2021

Additional Information

Publisher Description

Tags

Fossil Men

By:

$2.00

Condition

Format

Meet the seller

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Fossil Men

By: Kermit Pattison

'Fossil Men' readers also enjoyed:

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