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Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
Penguin
April 2006
320 pages ISBN: 1594200793 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Based on a groundbreaking synthesis of recent scientific
findings, an acclaimed New York Times science reporter tells
a bold and provocative new story of the history of our
ancient ancestors and the evolution of human nature Just in the last three years a flood of new scientific
findings-driven by revelations discovered in the human
genome-has provided compelling new answers to many
long-standing mysteries about our most ancient ancestors-the
people who first evolved in Africa and then went on to
colonize the whole world. Critically acclaimed New York
Times science reporter Nicholas Wade weaves this host of
news-making findings together for the first time into an
intriguing new history of the human story before the dawn of
civilization. Sure to stimulate lively controversy, he makes
the case for novel arguments about many hotly debated issues
such as the evolution of language and race and the genetic
roots of human nature, and reveals that human evolution has
continued even to today. In wonderfully lively and lucid prose, Wade reveals the
answers that researchers have ingeniously developed to so
many puzzles: When did language emerge? When and why did we
start to wear clothing? How did our ancestors break out of
Africa and defeat the more physically powerful Neanderthals
who stood in their way? Why did the different races evolve,
and why did we come to speak so many different languages?
When did we learn to live with animals and where and when
did we domesticate man's first animal companions, dogs? How
did human nature change during the thirty-five thousand
years between the emergence of fully modern humans and the
first settlements? Wade takes readers to the forefront of research in a
sweeping and engrossing narrative unlike any other, the
first to reveal how genetic discoveries are helping to weave
together the perspectives of archaeology, paleontology,
anthropology, linguistics, and many other fields. This will
be the most talked about science book of the season.
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