| Description |
1 online resource (1 audio file (15hr., 21 min.)) : digital. |
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digital digital recording rda |
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data file rda |
| Access |
Digital content provided by hoopla. |
| Performer |
Read by Roger Wayne. |
| Summary |
A behind-the-scenes account of the discovery of the oldest skeleton of a human ancestor, named "Ardi"-a find that shook the world of paleoanthropology and radically altered our understanding of human evolution. In 1994, a team led by fossil-hunting legend Tim White-"the Steve Jobs of paleoanthropology"-uncovered the bones of a human ancestor in Ethiopia's Afar region. Radiometric dating of nearby rocks indicated the skeleton, classified as Ardipithecus ramidus, was 4.4 million years old, more than a million years older than "Lucy," then the oldest known human ancestor. The findings challenged many assumptions about human evolution-how we started walking upright, how we evolved our nimble hands, and, most significantly, whether we were descended from an ancestor that resembled today's chimpanzee-and repudiated a half-century of paleoanthropological orthodoxy. Fossil Men is the first full-length exploration of Ardi, the fossil men who found her, and her impact on what we know about the origins of the human species. It is a scientific detective story played out in anatomy and the natural history of the human body. Kermit Pattison brings into focus a cast of eccentric, obsessive scientists, including one of the world's greatest fossil hunters, Tim White-an exacting and unforgiving fossil hunter whose virtuoso skills in the field were matched only by his propensity for making enemies; Gen Suwa, a Japanese savant who sometimes didn't bother going home at night to devote more hours to science; Owen Lovejoy, a onetime creationist-turned-paleoanthropologist; Berhane Asfaw, who survived imprisonment and torture to become Ethiopia's most senior paleoanthropologist and who fought for African scientists to gain equal footing in the study of human origins; and the Leakeys, for decades the most famous family in paloanthropology. An intriguing tale of scientific discovery, obsession and rivalry that moves from the sun-baked desert of Africa and a nation caught in a brutal civil war, to modern high-tech labs and academic lecture halls, Fossil Men is popular science at its best, and a must read for fans of Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson. |
| System Details |
Mode of access: World Wide Web. |
| Subject |
Fossil hominids.
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Human evolution.
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| Added Author |
Wayne, Roger, 1984- narrator.
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hoopla digital.
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| ISBN |
9780062660039 (sound recording : hoopla Audio Book) |
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0062660039 (sound recording : hoopla Audio Book) |
| Music No. |
MWT12577416 |
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