“How is it we are here, on this path we walk In this world of pointless fear filled with empty talk Descended from the apes as scientist-priests all think Will they save us in the end, we’re trembling on the brink” -- Mike Pinder, “How Is It” (1970)
“Lee estimates that the odds of finding the bones of our oldest ancestors are ten million to one – that is the kind of gamble he likes. As he says, ‘ I always want to push boundaries.’ That is not just because he likes to take big risks – though he does – but because he wants to make big discoveries, and there is no larger challenge than helping to solve the mystery of human origins.
“How, and why, did we evolve from apes? Which came first, walking on two legs or having a hand that made it easy to use tools? What about our brains – which are much larger than those of chimps and organized in different ways – how did that happen? “
Reading Lucy gave Lee a vision of his life goal: hunting for the most crucial, and precious, clues to the story of humankind. But Lucy was also a warning: fossil hunting requires the perfect blend of knowledge, guts and luck. Lee had found what he loved: the most difficult mystery of all.”
I grew up working Saturdays and vacations on my parents’ residential construction sites, so it doesn’t faze me to read about a nine year-old boy -- out working with his paleontologist/professor dad – who discovers fossilized hominid bones from a previously-unknown ancestor to modern man. But it sure as heck is fun to read about.
I’ve heard of but never read a book about “Lucy,” the collection of fossilized bones discovered in 1974 that turned out to be a complete skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis. The science and history in THE SKULL IN THE ROCK is explained so clearly that I could fully understand what the big deal is here, despite only having a passing knowledge of Lucy. I have had my share of fun playing with Google Earth, so I can readily understand and appreciate how Lee utilized it to zero in on likely places to explore for the origins of humankind. “We now believe that nature tried all sorts of experiments in the millions of years during which troops of animals that walked upright on two feet lived in Africa. Making sense of this wide variety of bones has churned up so many more questions than answers that even the terms are changing. We used to speak of ‘hominids’ – the large group including us, our ancestors, and our primate relatives. Now Lee, and many other scientists, prefer to say ‘hominins’ – meaning only humans and our human-like relatives – treating this cluster as distinct from the chimpanzee, gorilla, bonobo, orangutan, and gibbon group. But if experts argue over how to lump or split clear human and clear nonhuman, think of how difficult it is to map out what once lay between us.” That, to me, makes more sense than the theories they taught me in 1970 when I last took a biology class. The co-authors have given this photo- and imagined paintings-filled volume a fun, hands-on flavor by providing a number of series of captioned photos that demonstrate scientific processes utilized in the searching and evaluating of these new fossils. I also like the very nifty website (https://www.scimania.org) that has been set up as a companion to the book and promises to provide further (and newly discovered) information on these and related topics. I don’t usually get all excited about these sorts of fossil discoveries. They sort of register and I move on.
But I am really excited about sharing this great new book about the kid who found the one-in-ten-million bones.
64 pages 978-1426310102 Ages 10-14
Recommended by: Richie Partington, Librarian, California USA
See more of his recommendations at: Richie’s Picks _https://richiespicks.com_ (https://richiespicks.com/)
***********
From the fossil hunter who discovered the Homo naledi fossils in September 2015, this book is an amazing account of Lee Berger’s 2008 hunt -- with the help of his curious 9-year-old son -- for a previously unknown species of ape-like creatures that may have been direct ancestors of modern humans. The discovery of two remarkably well preserved, two-million-year-old fossils of an adult female and young male, known as Australopiitecus sediba, has been hailed as one of the most important archaeological discoveries in history.
The fossils reveal what may be one of humankind''s oldest ancestors. Berger believes the skeletons they found on the Malapa site in South Africa could be the "Rosetta stone that unlocks our understanding of the genus Homo" and may just redesign the human family tree. Berger, an Eagle Scout and National Geographic Grantee, is the Reader in Human Evolution and the Public Understanding of Science in the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
The focus of the book will be on the way in which we can apply new thinking to familiar material and come up with a breakthrough. Marc Aronson is particularly interested in framing these issues for young people and has had enormous success with this approach in his previous books: Ain''t Nothing But a Man and If Stones Could Speak. Berger''s discovery in one of the most excavated and studied areas on Earth revealed a treasure trove of human fossils--and an entirely new human species--where people thought no more field work might ever be necessary.
Technology and revelation combined, plus a good does of luck, to broaden by ten times the number of early human fossils known, rejuvenating this field of study and posing countless more questions to be answered in years and decades to come.---from the publisher
