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Lucy: The Beginnings Of Humankind

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When Donald Johanson found a partial skeleton, approximately 3.5 million years old, in the remote Afar region of Ethiopia in November 0f 1974, he knew he had stumbled onto something unique. Bursting with all the suspense and intrigue of a fast-paced adventure novel, and filled with lively, up-to-the-minute scientific detail and marvelous illustrations in color and black-and-white, this major new book unfolds the extraordinary story of Johanson's discovery of “Lucy”- the oldest, most complete, best-preserved skeleton of any erect-walking human ancestor ever found, and the first new species to be named in more than 15 years; reveals the controversial change Lucy makes in our view of human origins; and provides a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of the entire history of paleoanthropology-and the eccentric, colorful characters who are and were a part of it. In January 1979, Johanson’s startling “official” announcement of his discovery of Lucy (which is how the world knows her, from the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” even though her scientific name is Australopithecus afarensis) was an event that captured headlines, catapulted a young, relatively unknown American paleoanthropologist into international acclaim, and created a spirited, ongoing controversy among experts-including, most notably, Mary and Richard Leakey-in this wonderfully enigmatic field of fierce rivalries and astonishing breakthroughs. The story behind the controversy between Johanson and Richard Leakey over the significance of Lucy is revealed here fully for the first time-and marks the first real and successful challenge to the “Leakey dynasty” ever made. What was Lucy? Her brain was too small to be a human's, yet she walked upright-the very hallmark of being human. Where on the meticulously worked-out line of human evolution - the “family tree”- did she fit? As Johanson confronts -and answers -these hard questions and others, he takes us with him into the field and into the lab as he analyzes his new fossils (the year after he discovered Lucy, he discovered fossils of at least 13 individuals who were probably related and are now known as the First Family), conducts ever more ambitious expeditions, consults with colleagues, experiences doubts, conquers his own biases, and gains fresh insights along the way. And he takes us back into time, letting us relive the discoveries of Raymond Dart’s Taung Baby, the Java ape-man, the controversial Piltdown Man, and many others-and introducing us to such fascinating people as Robert Broom, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Raymond Dart, Louis Leakey, Sir Arthur Keith, Eugene Dubois. We learn about potassium-argon dating (how age is determined), how and why our ancestors began to walk upright, the differences-and similarities-between apes and humans, and much more. Never before have the mystery and intricacy of our origins-a subject of endless fascination-been so clearly and compellingly explained as in this astonishing new book.

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Publisher

New York : Simon And Schuster., 1981

Collation

Hardcover, 416 hlm, 16x24 cm

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0-671-25036-1

Classification

NONE

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