Posted: Jul 11, 2015 11:58 am
Spearthrower wrote:Sitting right next to me now is a book I very much recommend to anyone interested by any of this stuff:
The Origin of Our Species, by Chris Stringer.
It's speculation backed up with hard evidence, and this guy really knows his stuff.
Perhaps good for someone who is into this stuff already. I didn't really like it. Though maybe it was just my expectations. I was hoping that it would take us on a narrative from our common ancestor with chimps to modern humans, showing us what changes happened along the way and why. But it seemed to be kind of all over the place and focused mainly on only the last couple hundred thousand years. I wanted the emphasis to be on what we know rather than how we know it and all about the various sites and evidence etc. It was kind of ... cold. I wanted something more like Richard Fortey's Life, if you've ever read that.
I also felt there was a little bit of axe grinding on the subject of Recent African Origins vs Multiregional hypotheses.
I mean I don't doubt the accuracy and all that. He does know his stuff. But I wouldn't recommend to the general reader who wants just one book on human origins. Though I also don't know what i would recommend as thats the only one I read.