The Origin Of Humankind
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
"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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
