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Ever since the recognition of the Neanderthals as an archaic form of human in the mid-nineteenth century, the fossilized bones of extinct humans have been used by paleoanthropologists to explore human origins. These bones told the story of how the earliest humans—bipedal apes, actually—first emerged in Africa some 6 to 7 million years ago. Starting about 2 million years ago, the bones reveal that as humans became anatomically and behaviorally more modern, they swept out of Africa in waves into Asia, Europe, and finally into the New World.

Even as paleoanthropologists continued to make important discoveries—Mary Leakey’s Nutcracker Man in 1959, Don Johanson’s Lucy in 1974, and most recently Martin Pickford’s Millennium Man, to name just a few—experts in genetics were looking at the human species from a very different angle. In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick first envisioned the double helix structure of DNA, the basic building block of all life. In the 1970s it was shown that humans share 98.7 percent of their genes with the great apes—that in fact genetically we are more closely related to chimpanzees than chimpanzees are to gorillas. And most recently the entire human genome has been mapped—we now know where each of the genes are located on the DNA strands that make up our chromosomes.

In Human Origins: What Bones and Genomes Tell Us about Ourselves, two of the world’s foremost scientists, geneticist Rob DeSalle and paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall, show how research into the human genome confirms what fossil bones have told us about human origins. This unprecedented integration of the fossil and genomic records provides the most complete understanding possible of humanity’s place in nature, its emergence from the rest of the living world, and the evolutionary processes that have molded human populations to be what they are today.

Human Origins serves as a companion volume to the American Museum of Natural History’s new permanent exhibit, as well as standing alone as an accessible overview of recent insights into what it means to be human. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

A fascinating compelling glimpse, into,our evolutionary past which was successfully weaved together through fossil evidence
It can not be argued thathuman origins is a, compelling fascinating glimpse into our evolutionary past thatfor generations to,come has caused controversy in it,s debate amongst religious churches, for being too judgemental in the way we looked once which,of course is,a huge part of our,eveyday lives in categorizingwhom we came from in the culutre, that we live in which is a pretty general idea on what it's based upon which is human evolution the slow gradual step-by-step change from ape to man something that in our philosophical existence we can't accept as created myth.

Keep this one for your grandchildren too
To their credit and our benefit, DeSalle and Tattersall deal directly with the significance of modern scientific genetic studies to contemporary religious doctrines such as those espoused by the Catholic church and intelligent design (ID) folk.Genetisists posit that life processes such as evolution are equal (the same) for all animals.No favorites here.Continuing, by nature evolutionary change is dependent on the mystery and spontaneous emergence of random mutations.ID and other religions imagine an intelligent, preordained, immutable (no mutations here) design or cosmic plan.A line in the sand cut clear and deep by the informed authors.

Who We Are and How We Got That Way
Paleoanthropology has always been multidisciplinary.The addition of the study of the human genome has simply added incrementally to the disciplines required to fully understand human origins.Genomics is a discipline which could easily have glazed the eyes of the entry level reader without contributing to the understanding of the already scientifically literate.What DeSalle and Tattersall do with Human Origins is to show how molecular systematics contributes to the established interpretation of the fossil record.They tee up the subject by reviewing the state of scientific knowledge in the fields of evolution, geology, stratigraphy, genetics, x-ray crystallography, cladograms...And if you need a remedial paragraph or two on what "science" is, or what a brain is, this is your book.

Pay particular attention to the factors which alter genomes over time.Understand how "genetic drift" and "natural selection" do the hard work in changing allele frequencies.The authors' explanations are masterful, for instance equating drift to sampling error in statistics.Understanding these basics will make it easier to understand the how certain features of early hominid physiology resulted from drift or selection.And you have to love how the authors refer to some of the facile misunderstandings of evolution as little more than "just so" stories (though they omit an attribution to Rudyard Kipling for the analogy).

Most distressing is the revelation that the human y chromosome has been shrinking at a steady rate, and will in a mere 125,000 years completely disappear, leaving women alone on earth, with terminal consequences for our species.

You used to be able to demonstrate your competence in the field of paleoanthropology with an understanding of sagital crests, dental wear patterns, or by your interpretation of the Laetoli footprints.Now you need to demonstrate your understanding of how the dispersion of mitochondrial DNA haplogroups illuminates early human migration routes.Human Origins will bring you up that curve in short order.

The compelling issue in paleoanthropology, the current hot topic, is how human cognitive capabilities suddenly sprang into being.Our anatomical features hadn't changed since our advent, some 200,000 years ago, yet beginning about 30,000 years ago we started expressing ourselves in a way that signified we finally got it.Certainly by 14,000 years ago this capability had become fully developed in Cro Magnon.Other writers have postulated something called a "neural event," meaning some alteration in how the brain functioned.DeSalle and Tattersall offer a more compelling interpretation, that language changed everything and made us what we are today.Language facilitated what the authors call "orders of intentionality," that is to say I know that you know what I know.Before language that was very difficult.Language enabled us to employ our brains for abstract, conceptual reasoning, utilizing for the first time our brain's full functionality, and the rest, as they say, is history.

There is, however, a problem with this book, and it is not with the content, but with its production.Ian Tattersall's books brought many of us up the learning curve on fundamental paleoanthropology, and he is a wonderful guy in the flesh, but even his most devoted fan will be shocked at the number of distracting editorial flaws in this book, in both the text and the graphics.If it's not too late I recommend that the authors stop payment on the editor's check.

Human origins
Thought the book did an overall great job of human origins,genetics,and the fossil record was well rounded. Could be too technical for some people not too familiar with human evolution so I would recommend from Lucy to language by Donald Johnson as a good primer.

Disjointed
I have been waiting for this book to come out for over 18 months. I am a big Ian Tattersall fan and appreciate the way he has been able over the years to make the study of human evolution and fossil man accessible to the lay reader in such books as The Fossil Trail,The Monkey in the Mirror, and Becoming Human. Im my opinion these books give a much better view of the current state of paleoanthropology and are better written. I found numerous typos in the text as well as the illustrations which were poorly put together. The sections on genetics were basic and often redundant- Wade's Before the Dawn explains these areas much better. Other books on human origins which I would recommend instead include Jordan's Neanderthal, Gibbon's The First Human, and Johanson's From Lucy to Language ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Emerging Infectious Diseases, published by Thomson Gale on September 1, 2006. The length of the article is 6657 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Genomic signatures of human versus avian influenza A viruses.(RESEARCH)
Author: Guaung-Wu Chen
Publication: Emerging Infectious Diseases (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 12Issue: 9Page: 1353(8)

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This book provides information regarding the new and rapidly changing subject of genomics, a rapidly exploding field exploring the complete genome sequence of a variety of organisms.With its emphasis on computational analysis, high-through-put technologies, and identification of biological networks, this book covers comparative genomics, structural genomics, phylogenomics, and pharmacogenomics.For professionals in the field of biology and genomics. ... Read more

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This book provides information regarding this new and rapidly changing subject. With its emphasis on computational analysis, high-through-put technologies, and identification of biological networks, it is a comprehensive introduction to the field of genomics.Topics include coverage of the basic foundations of genomics, bioinformatics, mapping and sequencing, genome sequencing, microarrays, proteomics, structural genomics, comparative genomics, medicine and genomics, and mendelian disease traits and genomics.For professionals in the field of biology and genomics. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from FDA Consumer, published by Thomson Gale on November 1, 2005. The length of the article is 1845 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Proteomics: moving beyond the human genome.
Author: Raymond, Jr. Formanek
Publication: FDA Consumer (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 39Issue: 6Page: NA

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How we grow; and what happens when mistakes occur Mutants is a book about how the body develops and grows from a single cell to an adult and then declines into old age. What does the new molecular genetics tell us about the human condition? How is a limb formed? Why do we have five fingers (and not six)? What controls the size to which we grow? Why do we age?More than this, however, it is a brilliant narrative history of what happens when things go wrong. This book tells, rather like a biological verison of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, the stories of particularly historically important and bizarre cases: of a French convent girl of the last century who found herself changing sex upon puberty and her miserable fate in the gutters of Paris; of children, invariably stillborn, who have cylopia (one eye located beneath their nasal cavity); of a tribe of pygmies in the Andaman Islands and a village of Ecuadorian dwarves: of a remarkably hairy family who were kept at the Burmese Royal Court for four generations (and from whom Darwin took one of his keenest insights into heredity); and so on.From each important lessons are drawn that illustrate over and over again the amazing nature of cellular growth and how it works. ... Read more

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ATP Binding Cassette (ABC) transporters are a family of integral membrane proteins that are likely to be represented in all the cells of all species of archaea, eubacteria and eukaryota. The vast majority of these proteins control the transport of molecules (from small hydrophilic ions to lipids and proteins) across cellular membranes. The human genome encodes 48 ABC transporters and most have been shown to underlie one or more human diseases. This book - that brings together state-of-the-art knowledge on proteins in one volume - will provide students, professors and medical professionals with a background to the human ABC transporters that are known to be relevant to diseases. Each of the 14 chapters is written by a leading researcher in the field and includes contributions from Joe Bryan and Lydia Aguilar-Bryan, Kazu Ueda, Jack Riordan and Robert Tampe. The genetics, structure and function of the proteins, and the future direction of research including the implications for human health are discussed in depth. ... Read more

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There is growing enthusiasm in the scientific community about the prospect of mapping and sequencing the human genome, a monumental project that will have far-reaching consequences for medicine, biology, technology, and other fields. But how will such an effort be organized and funded? How will we develop the new technologies that are needed? What new legal, social, and ethical questions will be raised? "Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome" is a blueprint for this proposed project. The authors offer a highly readable explanation of the technical aspects of genetic mapping and sequencing, and they recommend specific interim and long-range research goals, organizational strategies, and funding levels. They also outline some of the legal and social questions that might arise and urge their early consideration by policymakers. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The ethics of neuroscience deals with matters as a subclass of bioethics. Examples include mind control via psychopharmaceuticals, e.g., whether or not to give mind altering drugs to an autistic person to make them more "normal", the ethics of brain surgery such as an anterior commissurotomy to control epilepsy, a consequentialist moral anthropologist considering the consequences of Mayan brain surgery, or a politician considering the ethics of war and using brainwashing techniques in the Korean War, or the ethics of speechwriting to control the mind of a crowd. ... Read more