Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind“A glorious success…The science manages to be as exciting and spellbinding as the juiciest gossip” (San Franscisco Chronicle) in the story of the discovery of “Lucy”—the oldest, best-preserved skeleton of any erect-walking human ancestor ever found. When Donald Johanson found a partical skeleton, approximately 3.5 million years old, in a remote region of Ethiopia in 1974, a headline-making controversy was launched that continues on today. Bursting with all the suspense and intrigue of a fast paced adventure novel, here is Johanson’s lively account of the extraordinary discovery of “Lucy.” By expounding the controversial change Lucy makes in our view of human origins, Johanson provides a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of the history of pealeoanthropology and the colorful, eccentric characters who were and are a part of it. Never before have the mystery and intricacy of our origins been so clearly and compellingly explained as in this astonighing and dramatic book. |
Contents
PROLOGUE | 13 |
BACKGROUND | 25 |
The Early Fossil Finds | 27 |
The First ManApes | 40 |
A Date at Last | 71 |
Homo habilisthe Earliest Man? | 97 |
THE GOLDEN DECADE 19671977 | 105 |
Omo and Its Magic Ruler | 107 |
Cleaning Up | 220 |
Arguments over Dates and Footprints | 236 |
WHAT IS LUCY? | 253 |
The Analysis Begins | 255 |
The Analysis Is Completed | 279 |
The Reaction | 294 |
WHY DID LUCY WALK ERECT? | 307 |
Is It a Matter of Sex? | 309 |
The Triumph of Homo habilis | 136 |
The Knee Joint | 150 |
Some Hominid Jaws and Lucy | 164 |
How Old Is Lucy? | 187 |
The First Family | 208 |
UNFINISHED BUSINESS | 341 |
Electron Microscopes Black Holes and a Return to Hadar | 343 |
385 | 355 |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | 383 |
Other editions - View all
Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind Donald C. Johanson,Maitland Armstrong Edey No preview available - 1990 |
Common terms and phrases
Addis Afar afarensis Africa Alemayehu ancestor animal anthropologists apelike apes argon Aronson asked australopithecine baboon basalt began bipedal bones brain Broom camp canine cave chimpanzee Clark Howell collection Dart dating deposits Ethiopia evidence evolution expedition female field season footprints fossils geologist geology gorilla gracile Gray Gros Clark Hadar Hadar fossils hominid hominid fossils Homo erectus Homo habilis human KBS tuff Keith knee joint Koobi Koobi Fora Laetoli Lake Turkana Leakey's legs look Louis Louis Leakey Lovejoy Lucy male mammal manlike Mary Leakey Maurice Taieb million years ago million years old Miocene modern molars Museum older Olduvai paleoanthropology paper pieces Piltdown potassium-argon potassium-argon dating primitive Ramapithecus Richard Leakey robust sample scientists skull South African species specimens stone tools Taieb Taung Baby teeth things three million tooth tuff turned volcanic walking Walter Zinj