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A study of the 'Cradle of Humanity and its history. The 'Cradle of Humankind' (COH), bordering Gauteng and the North-West Province, was declared a World Heritage Site for the wealth of the human and animal fossils found there. Research based on fossils found in the area as well as signs of early human habitation have shed new light on the evolution of humankind and on the significant role that southern Africa played in the development of modern humans. A Search for Origins aims to provide an overview of the history of the COH, and of the important discoveries that have been made there, for a non-specialist audience. A number of general accounts have been written which have concentrated on the palaeontological discoveries made there. No systematic account written by specialists in their disciplines has, however, been published about the wider history of the COH and surrounding areas. In particular, no overview spanning the evolution of early plant and animal life, human development and recent and colonial history as reflected in discoveries linked to the COH, has been attempted. This edited volume frames the scientific advances that have been made in the COH against the intellectual and political background out of which they emerged. The multi-disciplinary approach - from a wide range of specialists -is innovative and ground-breaking.
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Richard Leakey's personal account of his fossil hunting and landmark discoveries at Lake Turkana, his reassessment of human prehistory based on new evidence and analytic techniques, and his profound pondering of how we became "human" and what being "human" really means.
A New York Times-bestselling author explains how the physical world shaped the history of our species When we talk about human history, we often focus on great leaders, population forces, and decisive wars. But how has the earth itself determined our destiny? Our planet wobbles, driving changes in climate that forced the transition from nomadism to farming. Mountainous terrain led to the development of democracy in Greece. Atmospheric circulation patterns later on shaped the progression of global exploration, colonization, and trade. Even today, voting behavior in the south-east United States ultimately follows the underlying pattern of 75 million-year-old sediments from an ancient sea. Everywhere is the deep imprint of the planetary on the human. From the cultivation of the first crops to the founding of modern states, Origins reveals the breathtaking impact of the earth beneath our feet on the shape of our human civilizations.
For nearly a half century, Dr. Simons has dominated the study of primate evolution. This volume summarizes the current state of knowledge in many aspects of primate and human evolution that have been studied by Simons and his colleagues and place it in a broader paleontological and historical perspective. The book contains the results of new research as well as reviews of many of the critical issues in primate and human evolution during the last half of the twentieth century.
Who are we? Where did we come from? What makes us human? The whole puzzle of our early life on earth is gradually being pieced together from fragments of bone, skulls and primitive tools dispersed throughout the world. The trail leads back nearly five million years. Here is a history of human evolution that reveals the very latest finds and thinking - discoveries that can help us to understand our past, our present and even future.
A major debate in anthropology concerns the relationship between anatomically modern humans and earlier "archaic" humans including the Neandertals. What was the origin of modern humans? Did we arise as a new species in Africa 200,000 years ago and then replace archaic human populations outside of Africa, or are our origins part of a single evolving lineage extending back over the past two million years? In addition to fossil and archaeological evidence, anthropologists have increasingly turned to using genetic data on living populations to address this question. Patterns of genetic variation within and between living human populations are felt to contain clues as to our species' evolutionary history, and provide a reflection of the past. This book reviews the modern human origins debate focusing on the genetic evidence relating to our origins, including genetic variation in living humans and recent discoveries of ancient DNA from fossil specimens. Following a brief introduction to the problem and a review of evolutionary genetics, the book focuses on gene trees and the search for a common ancestor, genetic diversity within populations, genetic distances between populations, the use of genetic data to reconstruct ancient demography, and Neandertal DNA. The main point of the text is that although the genetic data are often compatible with a replacement model, they are also compatible with some multiregional models. The concluding chapter makes the case that modern human origins are mostly, but not exclusively, out of Africa.
In Species of Origins, Karl W. Giberson and Donald A. Yerxa examine America's controversial conversation about creation and evolution. While noting that part of the discord stems from the growing cultural and religious diversity of the United States, they argue powerfully that the real issue is the headlong confrontation between two seemingly incompatible worldviews upon which millions of Americans rely: modern naturalistic science and traditional Judeo-Christian religions.
Translated by J. Edward Crowley. This radical reconstruction of the origins of Judaism starts by observing that Josephus's sources on the early history of Israel do not agree with the Bible and that the oldest rabbinic traditions show no sign of a biblical foundation. Another interesting question is raised by the Samaritan claim, at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, that they had only recently received the Sabbath from the Jews. From such details, Nodet creates a comprehensive line of argument that reveals two major sources of Judaism, as symbolized in the subtitle of his work: Joshua was the one who established locally in writing a statute and a law at the Shechem assembly, while the Mishnah was the ultimate metamorphosis of traditions brought from Babylon and combined with Judaean influences.