The world from beginnings to 4000 BCE /

The title is confusing, but in fact accurate: this slim, engagingly written volume (halfway between a text and a quick read) summarizes all of human (pre)history from ape ancestry nearly to the start of written history. Tattersall (American Museum of Natural History) is a leading researcher and the best writer of accessible books on human evolution. Two preliminary chapters review evolution, fossils, dating methods, and how species are named; later chapters proceed in time sequence. Australopiths form the earliest branches of the evolutionary tree leading toward people, but separate from apes. The first members of the genus Homo evolved in Africa, began to use stone tools, and then spread outward across Asia about 2 million years ago. Other species, including the Neanderthals of Europe, colonized parts of Eurasia and Africa from 1 million years ago onward, but it was not until about 200,000 years ago that the first members of Homo sapiens appeared in eastern Africa. These forebears again spread out of Africa into Eurasia about 100,000-50,000 years ago, eventually reaching the Americas and Australasia, carrying complex stone tools and body ornaments. From 12,000-6,000 years ago, humans became more sedentary and began domesticating plants and animals--precursors to fully urban life. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, undergraduates, and graduate students. E. Delson CUNY Herbert H. Lehman College

Tattersall (Becoming Human), a curator in the anthropology division of the American Museum of Natural History, uses fossil and archeological records to examine the seven (or so) million years from the dawn of the Hominidae, the family that includes humans, to the gradual development of agriculture and permanent settlements. His topic is huge and his pages are few, but this overview will give readers a sense of the current thinking in the field. Tattersall discusses the characteristics that separate Homo sapiens from extinct hominids, concluding that the gulf between us and our closest relative opened up when our enlarged brains gave rise to symbolic reasoning. Asserting that hominid evolution is more complex than previously thought and that the idea of a linear progression of species is far too simplistic, Tattersall presents mitochondrial DNA evidence that we are not directly related to Neanderthals and declares, "We are not the result of constant fine-tuning over the eons, any more than we are the summit of creation." Finally, he explains the techniques used to interpret the physical evidence of evolutionary processes. This is an elegant, if brief, introduction to a complex field. 20 b&w illus. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved