The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes, And Humans

Christopher Beard

University of California Press, Aug 1, 2006 - Science - 348 pages

Taking us back roughly 45 million years into the Eocene, "the dawn of recent life," Chris Beard, a world-renowned expert on the primate fossil record, offers a tantalizing new perspective on our deepest evolutionary roots. In a fast-paced narrative full of vivid stories from the field, he reconstructs our extended family tree, showing that the first anthropoids--the diverse and successful group that includes monkeys, apes, and humans--evolved millions of years earlier than was previously suspected and emerged in Asia rather than Africa.
In The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey, Beard chronicles the saga of two centuries of scientific exploration in search of anthropoid origins, from the early work of Georges Cuvier, the father of paleontology, to the latest discoveries in Asia, Africa, and North America's Rocky Mountains. Against this historical backdrop, he weaves the story of how his own expeditions have unearthed crucial fossils--including the controversial primate Eosimias--that support his compelling new vision of anthropoid evolution. The only book written for a wide audience that explores this remote phase of our own evolutionary history, The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey adds a fascinating new chapter to our understanding of humanity's relationship to the rest of life on earth.

What people are saying

Review: The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes, and Humans

User Review  - Tycoon - Goodreads

I think this book falls right into that awkward space between layfolks and specialists, a fact which unfortunately consigns it to mediocrity. Beard does a good job laying out the details, but I think ...

Review: The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes, and Humans

User Review  - Alison Dellit - Goodreads

While short, this is a dense read. Beard sprinkles anecdotes liberally throughout, but the meat of the book involves understanding the differences between various ridges on molars, and umpteen ...

Contents

• Missing Links and Dawn Monkeys: 1
• Toward Egypts Sacred Bull: 29
• A Gem from the Willwood: 61
• The Forest in the Sahara: 87
• Received Wisdom: 115
• The Birth of a Ghost Lineage: 142
• Initial Hints from Deep Time: 167
• Ghost Busters: 194
• Resurrecting the Ghost: 215
• Into the African Melting Pot: 246
• Paleoanthropology and Pithecophobia: 277
• Notes: 295
• References Cited: 313
• Index: 331

About the author

Chris Beard is Curator and Head, Section of Vertebrate Paleontology, Carnegie Museum of Natural History and winner of a MacArthur "genius" grant.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes, And Humans
• Author: Christopher Beard
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: University of California Press, 2006
• ISBN: 0520940253, 9780520940253
• Length: 348 pages
• Subjects: Science / Life Sciences / Biology; Science / Life Sciences / Evolution; Science / Paleontology; Social Science / Anthropology / General