Understanding Human Evolution

An authoritative account of human evolution, explaining the nature of the evidence and providing a new interpretation.

Ian Tattersall (Author)

9781009101998, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 July 2022

208 pages
17.8 x 12.8 x 1 cm, 0.24 kg

'An enjoyable, highly informative, and scholarly read. Tattersall is at his best here. Engaging the reader with his inimitable style, he interprets and explains the convoluted evidence for how we became human. Written largely for the non-specialist, there is much here that will inform and even stimulate professional paleoanthropologists.' Donald Johanson, Founding Director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, USA

Human life, and how we came to be, is one of the greatest scientific and philosophical questions of our time. This compact and accessible book presents a modern view of human evolution. Written by a leading authority, it lucidly and engagingly explains not only the evolutionary process, but the technologies currently used to unravel the evolutionary past and emergence of Homo sapiens. By separating the history of palaeoanthropology from current interpretation of the human fossil record, it lays numerous misconceptions to rest, and demonstrates that human evolution has been far from the linear struggle from primitiveness to perfection that we've been led to believe. It also presents a coherent scenario for how Homo sapiens contrived to cross a formidable cognitive barrier to become an extraordinary and unprecedented thinking creature. Elegantly illustrated, Understanding Human Evolution is for anyone interested in the complex and tangled story of how we came to be.

1. Evolution
2. Technology: dating, diets, and development
3. Discovery and interpretation of the human fossil record: the early days
4. Discovery and interpretation of the human fossil record: more recent developments
5. Early bipeds
6. The muddle in the middle
7. Homo heidelbergensis and the Neanderthals
8. The emergence and spread of Homo sapiens.

Subject Areas: Palaeontology [RBX], Early man [PSXE], Genetics [non-medical PSAK], Evolution [PSAJ], Popular science [PDZ], Philosophy of science [PDA], Anthropology [JHM]