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Revised, Updated, and Expanded
Simon and Schuster
October 2006
On Sale: October 17, 2006
288 pages
ISBN: 0743280644
EAN: 9780743280648
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
In 1974 in a remote region of Ethiopia, Donald Johanson,
then one of America's most promising young
paleoanthropologists, discovered "Lucy", the oldest, best
preserved skeleton of any erect-walking human ever found.
This discovery prompted a complete reevaluation of previous
evidence for human origins. In the years since this
dramatic discovery Johanson has continued to scour East
Africa's Great rift Valley for the earliest evidence of
human origins. In 1975 this team unearthed the "First
Family", an unparalleled fossil assemblage of 13 individuals
dating back to 3.2 million years ago; and in 1986 at the
Rift's most famous location, Olduvai Gorge, this same team
discovered a 1.8 million-year-old partial adult skeleton
that necessitated a reassessment of the earliest members of
our own genus Homo. Johanson's fieldwork
continues unabated and recently more fossil members of
Lucy's family have been found, including the 1992 discovery
of the oldest, most complete skull of her species, with
future research now planned for 1996 in the virtually
unexplored regions of the most northern extension of the
Rift Valley in Eritrea. From Lucy to Language
is a summing up of this remarkable career and a stunning
documentary of human life through time on Earth. It is a
combination of the vital experience of field work and the
intellectual rigor of primary research. It is the fusion of
two great writing talents: Johanson and Blake Edgar, an
accomplished science writer, editor of the California
Academy of Sciences' Pacific Discovery, and co-author
of Johanson's last book, Ancestors. From
Lucy to Language is one of the greatest stories ever
told, bracketing the timeline between bipedalism and human
language. Part I addresses the central issues facing anyone
seeking to decipher the mystery of human origins. In this
section the authors provide answers to the basics -- "What
are our closest living relatives?" -- tackle the
controversial -- "What is race?" -- and contemplate the
imponderables -- "Why did consciousness
evolve?" From Lucy to Language is an encounter
with the evidence. Early human fossils are hunted,
discovered, identified, excavated, collected, preserved,
labeled, cleaned, reconstructed, drawn, fondled,
photographed, cast, compared, measured, revered, pondered,
published, and argued over endlessly. Fossils like Lucy have
become a talisman of sorts, promising to reveal the deepest
secrets of our existence. In Part II the authors profile
over fifty of the most significant early human fossils ever
found. Each specimen is displayed in color and at actual
size, most of them in multiple views. With them the authors
present the cultural accoutrements associated with the
fossils: stone tools which evidence increasing
sophistication over time, the earliest stone, clay, and
ivory art objects, and the culminating achievement of the
dawn of human consciousness -- the magnificent rock and cave
paintings of Europe, Africa, Australia, and the
Americas. In the end From Lucy to Language is a
reminder and a challenge. Like no species before us, we now
seem poised to control vast parts of the planet and its
life. We possess the power to influence, if not govern,
evolution. For that reason, we must not forget our link to
the natural world and our debt to natural selection. We need
to "think deep", to add a dose of geologic time and
evolutionary history to our perspective of who we are, where
we came from, and where we are headed. This is the most
poignant lesson this book has to offer.
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