The Hominid Gang : behind the scenes in the search for human origins /

Scientists' awareness of seven hominid species antedating our own spurs the tantalizing search for human origins. Willis, a contributor to Omni and People who has hiked across East Africa with leading paleontologists, reviews the recent, dramatic discoveries of Richard Leakey, Donald Johansen and other paleoanthropologists in a detailed yet meandering report that will appeal to serious students but may leave the general reader bewildered. Among the finds discussed are the ``Turkana Boy,'' a 1.6-million-year-old Homo erectus skeleton found in Kenya in 1984, and hominid footprints preserved in volcanic ash in Tanzania, dating back 3.5 million years. Besides exploring current controversies, Willis profiles key investigators, among them Mary Leakey, Kamoya Kimeu, Joseph Mutaba and Frank Brown. She also examines the ``Theory of Eve,'' which holds that a single female Homo erectus mothered all of us--a hypothesis being tested via DNA analysis. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Using an approach pioneered by John McPhee in Basin and Range ( LJ 4/1/81), Willis focuses on paleontologists, tracing the complex issues of finding, dating, and interpreting hominid remains with style and insight. She profiles major players--Richard Leakey, Donald Johanson, and Stephen Jay Gould Johanson's Lucy's Child: The Discovery of a Human Ancestor is reviewed above; Gould's Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History , on p. 214.-- Ed. --and the lesser-known, such as geologist Frank Brown, who reconstructs the ancient landscape of Turkana, Kenya, and the African fossil hunters of the Hominid Gang. Highly recommended for all libraries.-- Beth Clewis, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community Coll. Lib., Richmond, Va. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

An excellent look at the personalities and puzzles in the scientific search for human origins. Willis, a science and travel writer, arrows in on the most prominent personalities in the ""hominid gang"" of African fossil-hunters. Her stellar attraction is Richard Leakey, the brash African-born heir to a family of fossil-hunters. Willis devotes much space to sorting out, in a series of vivid set-pieces, Leakey's famed rivalry with American David Johanson (Leakey believes that our ancestors run back in the Homo line for several million years; Johanson believes we sprang from the australopithecines, whose remains include the famous ""Lucy"" fossil). In the Nairobi Museum, Leakey and Stephen Jay Gould argue about whether humans had a single or multiple origin; at the Museum of Natural History in New York, scores of paleontologists pore over a special exhibit of 40 classic hominid fossils; near Lake Turkana in Kenya, Willis follows paleogeographer Frank Brown as he deciphers geological strata. The hominid gang and its allies, as Willis amply demonstrates, incorporates a variety of disciplines: Peter Jones fiddling with ancient tools, Alan Walker reconstructing fossils, Irven Devore speculating on human mating strategies. For all these scientists, Willis shows, research is not the glamorized adventure of Indiana Jones, but rather years of monotonous work in dusty labs and even dustier fields. Without doubt the best you-are-there look at human origins. Darwin himself would have enjoyed this one. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.