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Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor
Little Brown and Company
May 2009
On Sale: May 20, 2009
262 pages ISBN: 0316070084 EAN: 9780316070089 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
For more than a century, scientists have raced to unravel
the human family tree and have grappled with its
complications. Now, with an astonishing new discovery,
everything we thought we knew about primate origins could
change. Lying inside a high-security vault, deep within the
heart of one of the world’s leading natural history museums,
is the scientific find of a lifetime — a perfectly
fossilized early primate, older than the previously most
famous primate fossil, Lucy, by forty-four million years. A
secret until now, the fossil — “Ida” to the researchers who
have painstakingly verified her provenance — is the most
complete primate fossil ever found. Forty-seven million
years old, Ida rewrites what we’ve assumed about the
earliest primate origins. Her completeness is unparalleled —
so much of what we understand about evolution comes from
partial fossils and even single bones, but Ida’s
fossilization offers much more than that, from a haunting
“skin shadow” to her stomach contents. And, remarkably,
knowledge of her discovery and existence almost never saw
the light of day. With exclusive access to the first
scientists to study her, the award-winning science writer
Colin Tudge tells the history of Ida and her place in the
world. A magnificent, cutting-edge scientific detective
story followed her discovery, and The Link offers a
wide-ranging investigation into Ida and our earliest
origins. At the same time, it opens a stunningly evocative
window into our past and changes what we know about primate
evolution and, ultimately, our own.
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