Java Man: How Two Geologists'Changed Out Understanding of Human Evolution

"'Garniss, lend me your knife for a second, will you,' I whispered." So begins Java Man, the inside story of how one discovery—a human skull found on the island of Java—by two geologists shook the foundations of science. By uncovering new evidence about the hominid known as Java man, Carl C. Swisher and Garniss H. Curtis were able to date his fossil remains at 1.7 million years, an age that stunned the scientific community because it pushed back the time when humans migrating out of Africa first reached Eurasia by nearly one million years. Cowritten by the popular science writer Roger Lewin, this is a gripping and informative account of the discovery that breathed new life into the human origins debate.

Originally published by Scribner
2000 ISBN: 0-684-80000-4

Carl C. Swisher III is an associate professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at Rutgers University.

Garniss H. Curtis, a pioneer of modern techniques for dating ancient rocks, is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Berkeley Geochronology Center.
Roger Lewin is the author of seventeen books, including Bones of Contention and Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos, both available from the University of Chicago Press.