The Five Million Year Odyssey

Author : Peter Bellwood
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2024-05-14
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780691258812

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The Five-Million-Year Odyssey by Peter Bellwood Pdf

"Human beings are incredibly diverse, from appearance and language to culture. How do we understand this diversity as a product of evolution and migration over millions of years? In this book, Peter Bellwood brings together biology, archaeology, linguistics, and anthropology to provide a sweeping look at human evolution from 5 million years ago to the rise of agriculture and civilization, presenting modern human diversity as a product of the shared history of human populations around the world. Bellwood opens the book by explaining what allows us to understand and reconstruct the human past, including the importance of archaeological, biological, and cultural approaches as well as an understanding of climate and chronology on vast time scales. From there he proceeds forward in time from the split with chimpanzees c. 6 million years ago, the emergence of Homo 2.5 million years ago, and the appearance of modern humans c. 300,000 years ago. Each chapter is driven by a set of major questions that we have new answers to, such as when did human first leave Africa?, was Homo a new species?, what was the path of migration for early humans and did early humans have discernible social life and material culture? Moving forward in time, Bellwood describes cultural and then linguistic evolution over the last 20,000 years, again driving each chapter with big questions. He concludes the book by asking how much human behavior has changed based on what we know about the past and whether humans are still evolving genetically and culturally. Ultimately, this book shows that to understand human history and ongoing modern human diversity we must first understand human populations as a the result of millions of years of shared genetic and cultural evolution"--

Author : Ian Tattersall
Publisher : MacMillan Publishing Company
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 1993
Category : Science
ISBN : UOM:39076001345342

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The Human Odyssey by Ian Tattersall Pdf

A virtual portable museum on the subject of human evolution--based on the fascinating displays featured in the new Hall of Human Biology and Evolution at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Maps, charts, timelines, sidebars. Over 125 illustrations, 55 in full color.

Author : David R. Begun
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2018-11-13
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780691182803

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The Real Planet of the Apes by David R. Begun Pdf

The astonishing new story of human origins Was Darwin wrong when he traced our origins to Africa? The Real Planet of the Apes makes the explosive claim that it was in Europe, not Africa, where apes evolved the most important hallmarks of our human lineage. In this compelling and accessible book, David Begun, one of the world’s leading paleoanthropologists, transports readers to an epoch in the remote past when the Earth was home to many migratory populations of ape species. Begun draws on the latest astonishing discoveries in the fossil record, as well as his own experiences conducting field expeditions, to offer a sweeping evolutionary history of great apes and humans. He tells the story of how one of the earliest members of our evolutionary group evolved from lemur-like monkeys in the primeval forests of Africa. Begun then vividly describes how, over the next ten million years, these hominoids expanded into Europe and Asia and evolved climbing and hanging adaptations, longer maturation times, and larger brains. As the climate deteriorated in Europe, these apes either died out or migrated south, reinvading the African continent and giving rise to the lineages of African great apes, and, ultimately, humans. Presenting startling new insights, The Real Planet of the Apes fundamentally alters our understanding of human origins.

Author : Stephen Baxter
Publisher : Del Rey
Page : 617 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2003-01-01
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780345457844

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Evolution by Stephen Baxter Pdf

“Magisterial and uplifting . . . A brilliant, grandscale sampling of sixty-five million years of human evolution . . . It shows the sweep and grandeur of life in its unrelenting course.” —The Denver Post Stretching from the distant past into the remote future, from primordial Earth to the stars, Evolution is a soaring symphony of struggle, extinction, and survival; a dazzling epic that combines a dozen scientific disciplines and a cast of unforgettable characters to convey the grand drama of evolution in all its awesome majesty and rigorous beauty. Sixty-five million years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, there lived a small mammal, a proto-primate of the species Purgatorius. From this humble beginning, Baxter traces the human lineage forward through time. The adventure that unfolds is a gripping odyssey governed by chance and competition, a perilous journey to an uncertain destination along a route beset by sudden and catastrophic upheavals. It is a route that ends, for most species, in stagnation or extinction. Why should humanity escape this fate? Praise for Evolution “Spectacular.”—The New York Times Book Review “Strong imagination, a capacity for awe, and the ability to think rigorously about vast and final things abound in the work of Stephen Baxter. . . . [Evolution] leaves the reader with a haunting portrayal of the distant future.”—Times Literary Supplement “A breath of fresh air . . . The miracle of Evolution is that it makes the triumph of life, which is its story, sound like the real story.”—The Washington Post Book World

Author : Marie Mai Perron
Publisher : iUniverse
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2011-06-06
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781462018680

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A Prehistoric Odyssey by Marie Mai Perron Pdf

Every paleontologist dreams of studying live dinosaurs in their natural environment. Theres only one small hurdle in the way: sixty-five million years. But unlike so many of his peers, Matthew Carrington has real reason to believe hell be making such a journey to the far reaches of a bygone era. Now, thanks to a colleagues major technological breakthrough, time travel has just vaulted from the theoretical to the possible. But before Matthew can experience such an adventure, problems arise: delays, politics, and greed plague the project. Against his better judgment, he chooses to stay on board. The result is nothing short of a disaster. Now, Matthew and his team are stranded in the past, where they have to deal with isolation, predators, disease, and their own shortcomings. Hopes of ever making it back to the Holocene are dwindling with each catastrophe they encounter. Total human world population: nine and rapidly decreasing.

Author : Andrew H. Knoll
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 302 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2015-03-22
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781400866045

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Life on a Young Planet by Andrew H. Knoll Pdf

Australopithecines, dinosaurs, trilobites--such fossils conjure up images of lost worlds filled with vanished organisms. But in the full history of life, ancient animals, even the trilobites, form only the half-billion-year tip of a nearly four-billion-year iceberg. Andrew Knoll explores the deep history of life from its origins on a young planet to the incredible Cambrian explosion, presenting a compelling new explanation for the emergence of biological novelty. The very latest discoveries in paleontology--many of them made by the author and his students--are integrated with emerging insights from molecular biology and earth system science to forge a broad understanding of how the biological diversity that surrounds us came to be. Moving from Siberia to Namibia to the Bahamas, Knoll shows how life and environment have evolved together through Earth's history. Innovations in biology have helped shape our air and oceans, and, just as surely, environmental change has influenced the course of evolution, repeatedly closing off opportunities for some species while opening avenues for others. Readers go into the field to confront fossils, enter the lab to discern the inner workings of cells, and alight on Mars to ask how our terrestrial experience can guide exploration for life beyond our planet. Along the way, Knoll brings us up-to-date on some of science's hottest questions, from the oldest fossils and claims of life beyond the Earth to the hypothesis of global glaciation and Knoll's own unifying concept of ''permissive ecology.'' In laying bare Earth's deepest biological roots, Life on a Young Planet helps us understand our own place in the universe--and our responsibility as stewards of a world four billion years in the making. In a new preface, Knoll describes how the field has broadened and deepened in the decade since the book's original publication.

Author : Peter R. Grant,B. Rosemary Grant
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2020-03-31
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781400837946

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How and Why Species Multiply by Peter R. Grant,B. Rosemary Grant Pdf

Charles Darwin's experiences in the Galápagos Islands in 1835 helped to guide his thoughts toward a revolutionary theory: that species were not fixed but diversified from their ancestors over many generations, and that the driving mechanism of evolutionary change was natural selection. In this concise, accessible book, Peter and Rosemary Grant explain what we have learned about the origin and evolution of new species through the study of the finches made famous by that great scientist: Darwin's finches. Drawing upon their unique observations of finch evolution over a thirty-four-year period, the Grants trace the evolutionary history of fourteen different species from a shared ancestor three million years ago. They show how repeated cycles of speciation involved adaptive change through natural selection on beak size and shape, and divergence in songs. They explain other factors that drive finch evolution, including geographical isolation, which has kept the Galápagos relatively free of competitors and predators; climate change and an increase in the number of islands over the last three million years, which enhanced opportunities for speciation; and flexibility in the early learning of feeding skills, which helped species to exploit new food resources. Throughout, the Grants show how the laboratory tools of developmental biology and molecular genetics can be combined with observations and experiments on birds in the field to gain deeper insights into why the world is so biologically rich and diverse. Written by two preeminent evolutionary biologists, How and Why Species Multiply helps to answer fundamental questions about evolution--in the Galápagos and throughout the world.

Author : Kevin N. Laland
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 450 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2018-09-11
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780691184470

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Darwin's Unfinished Symphony by Kevin N. Laland Pdf

Humans possess an extraordinary capacity for culture, from the arts and language to science and technology. But how did the human mind—and the uniquely human ability to devise and transmit culture—evolve from its roots in animal behavior? Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony presents a captivating new theory of human cognitive evolution. This compelling and accessible book reveals how culture is not just the magnificent end product of an evolutionary process that produced a species unlike all others—it is also the key driving force behind that process. Kevin Laland tells the story of the painstaking fieldwork, the key experiments, the false leads, and the stunning scientific breakthroughs that led to this new understanding of how culture transformed human evolution. It is the story of how Darwin’s intellectual descendants picked up where he left off and took up the challenge of providing a scientific account of the evolution of the human mind.

Author : R. McNeill Alexander
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 184 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2020-11-10
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780691221601

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Optima for Animals by R. McNeill Alexander Pdf

Optimization theory is designed to find the best ways of doing things. The structures of animals, their movements, their behavior, and their life histories have all been shaped by the optimizing processes of evolution or of learning by trial and error. In this revised edition of R. McNeill Alexander's widely acclaimed Optima for Animals, we see how extraordinarily diverse branches of biology are illuminated by the powerful methods of optimization theory. What is the best strength for a bone? Too weak a bone will probably break but an excessively stout one will be cumbersome. At what speed should humans change from walking to running? Should a bird take only big juicy worms or should it eat every worm it finds, and do birds make the best choices? Why do the males of some species of fishes and the females of others look after the young, while the young of others are looked after by both parents or neither? Is it possible that all these policies can be optimal, in different circumstances? This book shows how these and many other questions can be answered. The mathematics involved is explained very simply, with biology students in mind, but the book is not just for them. It is also for professionals, ranging from teachers to researchers.

Author : Rob Dunn,Monica Sanchez
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2022-09-27
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780691242088

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Delicious by Rob Dunn,Monica Sanchez Pdf

A savory account of how the pursuit of delicious foods shaped human evolution Nature, it has been said, invites us to eat by appetite and rewards by flavor. But what exactly are flavors? Why are some so pleasing while others are not? Delicious is a supremely entertaining foray into the heart of such questions. With generous helpings of warmth and wit, Rob Dunn and Monica Sanchez offer bold new perspectives on why food is enjoyable and how the pursuit of delicious flavors has guided the course of human history. They consider the role that flavor may have played in the invention of the first tools, the extinction of giant mammals, the evolution of the world’s most delicious and fatty fruits, the creation of beer, and our own sociality. Along the way, you will learn about the taste receptors you didn't even know you had, the best way to ferment a mastodon, the relationship between Paleolithic art and cheese, and much more. Blending irresistible storytelling with the latest science, Delicious is a deep history of flavor that will transform the way you think about human evolution and the gustatory pleasures of the foods we eat.

Author : Daniel Mendelsohn
Publisher : HarperCollins UK
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2017-09-07
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780007545148

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An Odyssey: A Father, A Son and an Epic: SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2017 by Daniel Mendelsohn Pdf

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2017 SHORTLISTED FOR THE LONDON HELLENIC PRIZE 2017 WINNER OF THE PRIX MÉDITERRANÉE 2018 From the award-winning, best-selling writer: a deeply moving tale of a father and son’s transformative journey in reading – and reliving – Homer’s epic masterpiece.

Author : Douglas Palmer
Publisher : Phoenix Press (CA)
Page : 283 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Science
ISBN : 0753820846

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Seven Million Years by Douglas Palmer Pdf

A voyage into the deep past to discover how we became human, and how modern science is rewriting our family tree. Seven million years ago there were ape-like animals living in the forests and woodlands of Africa who were our ancestors. They were also the ancestors of the chimpanzee. It's still a provocative thought today, but when the first steps toward this realization were taken, most scientists still believed in the special creation of humans and the story of the flood. Over the years, scientific research has uncovered a fascinating human family tree with over twenty members, and more extinct relatives still being identified. Seven Million Years explores the discovery of our own species, our nearest relatives and an ancient shared history. It tells the stories of the archaeological finds, the people who made them, and how these powerful revelations have altered how we perceive ourselves, our uniqueness as human beings, and our sense of self in relation to other animals.

Author : Tattersall
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 1993-10-01
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0130960411

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Human Odyssey by Tattersall Pdf

Author : Jeremy DeSilva
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2022-11-29
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780691242064

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A Most Interesting Problem by Jeremy DeSilva Pdf

Leading scholars take stock of Darwin's ideas about human evolution in the light of modern science In 1871, Charles Darwin published The Descent of Man, a companion to Origin of Species in which he attempted to explain human evolution, a topic he called "the highest and most interesting problem for the naturalist." A Most Interesting Problem brings together twelve world-class scholars and science communicators to investigate what Darwin got right—and what he got wrong—about the origin, history, and biological variation of humans. Edited by Jeremy DeSilva and with an introduction by acclaimed Darwin biographer Janet Browne, A Most Interesting Problem draws on the latest discoveries in fields such as genetics, paleontology, bioarchaeology, anthropology, and primatology. This compelling and accessible book tackles the very subjects Darwin explores in Descent, including the evidence for human evolution, our place in the family tree, the origins of civilization, human races, and sex differences. A Most Interesting Problem is a testament to how scientific ideas are tested and how evidence helps to structure our narratives about human origins, showing how some of Darwin's ideas have withstood more than a century of scrutiny while others have not. A Most Interesting Problem features contributions by Janet Browne, Jeremy DeSilva, Holly Dunsworth, Agustín Fuentes, Ann Gibbons, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Brian Hare, John Hawks, Suzana Herculano-Houzel, Kristina Killgrove, Alice Roberts, and Michael J. Ryan.

Author : Ralph Tollrian,C. Drew Harvell
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 402 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 1999-01-17
Category : Science
ISBN : 0691004943

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The Ecology and Evolution of Inducible Defenses by Ralph Tollrian,C. Drew Harvell Pdf

Inducible defenses--those often dramatic phenotypic shifts in prey activated by biological agents ranging from predators to pathogens--are widespread in the natural world. Yet research on the inducible defenses used by vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants in terrestrial, marine, and freshwater habitats has largely developed along independent lines. Tollrian and Harvell bring together leading researchers from all fields to review common themes and explore emerging ideas. Contributors examine organisms as different as unicellular algae and higher vertebrates, and consider defenses ranging from immune systems to protective changes in morphology, behavior, chemistry, and life history.