“The name Leakey is synonymous with the study of human origins,” wrote The New York Times. The renowned family of paleontologists—Louis Leakey, Mary Leakey, and their son Richard Leakey—has vastly expanded our understanding of human evolution. The Origin of Humankind is Richard Leakey's personal view of the development of Homo Sapiens. At the heart of his new picture of evolution is the introduction of a heretical notion: once the first apes walked upright, the evolution of modern humans became possible and perhaps inevitable. From this one evolutionary step comes all the other evolutionary refinements and distinctions that set the human race apart from the apes. In fascinating sections on how and why modern humans developed a social organization, culture, and personal behavior, Leakey has much of interest to say about the development of art, language, and human consciousness.
Leakey here distills the thinking he has elaborated upon in more richly illustrated formats, especially Origins and Origins Reconsidered, both coauthored with Roger Lewin. For the neophyte, something is perhaps gained by a sparer text. and fewer illustrations. The time lines and fossil skeleton views included here are sufficient to keep the wonder and mystery of anthropology pumping while Leakey meticulously teases out the disputes that make the discipline so obsessive. There is necessarily much that is familiar in these pages, but those who are not conversant with anthropology's near-ritual arguments on bipedalism, language and brain evolution, the origins of consciousness etc., will find this survey a reliable course.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
What makes this volume by the distinguished Kenyan paleoanthropologist and coauthor of Origins (1977) and Origins Reconsidered (LJ 9/1/92) particularly engaging is the lucid presentation and interpretation of recent findings and current issues in human evolution, all of which are woven into the story of human origins. Leakey attempts to explain what he holds to be the four big evolutionary events, all foci of scientific disputation: the evolution of bipedal locomotion in apelike primates, proliferation of species of the human family (the hominids), expansion of the brain with the evolution of the genus Homo, and evolution of modern humans. Leakey argues that complex social behavior-and not the use of tools and weapons-acted as the principal driving force in human evolution. Although the sections on the origins of the hominids and Homo seem the most cogent, discussions of the evolution of art, language, and consciousness are both informative and thought-provoking. Strongly recommended for general science collections.
James D. Haug, East Carolina Univ. Lib., Greenville, N.C.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
