Synopsis
Three individuals left these footprints in East Africa 3.7 million years ago. Walking upright on a human foot, these two adults and a child had crossed a threshold in the long path from vertebrates, mammals, and primates to enter and dominate a new world.
They were not alone. Others, related and descended in ways not clear, spread out, flourished, and disappeared: some became people of today. Although we now know a great deal of the story and new information is arriving ever more rapidly, there is still much to be learned about how our ancestors became us.
We do know that we arrived not because we were inevitable, but by luck and happenstance along the way. And we know there were other kinds of humans that might be here today but are not.
That is what this book is about. Renowned anthropologist, author, and educator William Howells draws together here the latest from all today's sciences to tell the fascinating story of our evolution. Moreover, he puts us in a front row seat to hear his colleagues debate their views and then shows us how to reach our own conclusions.
In the end, he provides food for thought about where we are going. Times have changed, but there is no reason to think we have advanced in physical or mental capacity since the Stone Age over 30,000 years ago when we were truly part of nature. Since then, civilization has rewritten the laws of natural selection because we can arrange for nearly all of us to survive, weak and strong alike: still, human evolution will continue in the direction of those with the most surviving offspring.
Reviews
Harvard physical anthropologist William Howells has written an excellent introduction to hominid evolution from the early australopithecines and Homo habilis, through Homo erectus with his hand axes, to Homo sapiens of today. Throughout this discussion, Howells contrasts the multi - regional continuity and replacement out-of-Africa models for explaining, in part, the rise of modern human beings. He pays special attention to those fossils, artifacts, and hypothesis that surround the complex Neanderthal history of our species. Numerous illustrations help to clarify the discovery, anatomy, and taxonomy of prehistoric ancestors. Of particular value to students as a basic text or reference, Getting Here is recommended for all anthropology collections. Readers interested in the topic should also refer to Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin's Origins Reconsidered in Search of What Makes Us Human ( LJ 9/1/92).
- H. James Birx, Canisius Coll., Buffalo, N.Y.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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