Publishers Weekly
11/02/2020
In this lively debut, journalist Pattison digs into the story of Ardi, a 4.4-million-year-old hominid skeleton with profound evolutionary ramifications. At the heart of this tale is Tim White, a Berkeley professor with a “monastic devotion to fossils,” who led the team that discovered Ardi in Ethiopia’s Middle Awash region in 1994 and spent 15 years studying the remains. Pattison describes the digs that unearthed Ardi, an ancestor of modern homo sapiens more than a million years older than the more famous Lucy, and captures White and company’s grueling expeditions to Ethiopia, where they had to navigate political tensions to retrieve the fossils and, after nine years, take them abroad for study. Pattison ably combines the adventure yarn with scientific minutiae, tracking the team’s findings, which ultimately refuted the theory that modern apes are close relics of a common human ancestor. Pattison doesn’t neglect the academic backlash against this challenge to conventional wisdom (one professor called them “so far wrong as to be laughable”) and makes vivid characters of the Ardi team. Though Pattison goes deep on the science, the abundance of detail gets to be a bit much. Nevertheless, those interested in human origins should check out this vivid and thorough study. Agent: Dan Conaway, Writers House. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
"[A] riveting account. ... In places, Fossil Men seems more reality television show than a work of popular science, as we follow an outrageous cast. ... The story lines border on the insane: There are civil wars, gunfights, at least one grenade rolling around the feet of scientists as they drive into the desert. ... Pattison... is every bit as good as the best scientist-writers. He describes the intricacies of the human wrist and foot with the skill of a poet... [and] explains in clear and compelling prose how scientists build family trees of ancient species." — New York Times Book Review
"Entertaining. ... Satisfying. ... Gripping. ... Big personalities, simmering turmoil, and fascinating popular science." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“At the core of Kermit Pattison’s rip-roaring tale is the prickly, obsessive, brilliant American paleonaut, Tim White, who braves revolutions, tribal warfare, and bitter scientific rivals to unearth ancient bones, without which there would be no pre-history, no civilization, no humanity.” — PETER NICHOLS, New York Times bestselling author of The Rocks and Evolution's Captain
“Reads like an Indiana Jones sequel. ...This is a book about the ongoing quest to find us—and what human nature is at its core.” — Politico
"Brilliant. ... A work of staggering depth. ... Pattison deftly weaves strands of science, sociology and political science into a compelling tale that stretches over decades. ... His prose is lively and accessible. ... An ambitious work that fully justifies the extraordinary effort that went into it, both by the fossil men and by the writer who chronicled their work." — Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Fossil Men is a wonderful mix of history, science and politics, full of pathos and insight in equal measure. I found it difficult to put down, and I didn’t want it to end....This book should be required reading for all those who care about how science may help answer the question of who we are as humans. A monumental achievement!” — HASOK CHANG, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
"An exciting book, full of colorful personalities, momentous discoveries, and new ideas that challenge us to reconsider everything we believed about the evolution of humankind." — Booklist
"Compelling science. ... Perfect for National Geographic readers who want to dig deep into the human evolutionary tree." — Library Journal
"A riveting story of academic, political, and personal intrigue." — Christian Science Monitor (Best Books of November 2020 Roundup)
"A dazzling journey into deep geological time. ... Pattinson combines his meticulously researched examination of the science of ancient humans with a visceral and penetrating tale of... intrigue, academic rivalry, pathological jealousy and intellectual inertia. He uses his first-hand experience of being on site in Ethiopia to detail the art, science, joys and challenges of fossil-hunting. ... Fascinating. ... Unexpected and revelatory." — The Spectator (London)
"Equal parts biography and adventure novel, Pattison illustrates the colorful characters — flaws and all — whose research has shaped our origin story as we know it today." — Discover magazine
“[A] lively debut. … Pattison ably combines the adventure yarn with scientific minutiae. … Those interested in human origins should check out this vivid and thorough study.” — Publishers Weekly
"Blends science and drama to tell the story of a major paleoanthropology find. ... For anyone interested in fossil hunting, evolutionary science and a hominid skeleton like no other, this book delivers." — Science News
“Pattison weaves the multiple intrigues of science, politics, and personalities into a masterly structured tale…. Leaves readers with a new sense of wonder at the origins of humankind.” — Christian Science Monitor
"Fascinating. ... Exciting." — Twin Cities Pioneer Press
"Any science-minded person... will truly enjoy Fossil Men." — Danville Commercial-News
"Perceptive and revealing. ... Pattison has a commendable and enviable grasp of a wide range of difficult methods and concepts, and he does a fine job of presenting and explaining the many scientific developments that have enriched the way we interpret the hominin fossil record.” — Journal of Human Evolution
The Spectator (London)
"A dazzling journey into deep geological time. ... Pattinson combines his meticulously researched examination of the science of ancient humans with a visceral and penetrating tale of... intrigue, academic rivalry, pathological jealousy and intellectual inertia. He uses his first-hand experience of being on site in Ethiopia to detail the art, science, joys and challenges of fossil-hunting. ... Fascinating. ... Unexpected and revelatory."
Christian Science Monitor (Best Books of November 2020 Roundup)
"A riveting story of academic, political, and personal intrigue."
HASOK CHANG
Fossil Men is a wonderful mix of history, science and politics, full of pathos and insight in equal measure. I found it difficult to put down, and I didn’t want it to end....This book should be required reading for all those who care about how science may help answer the question of who we are as humans. A monumental achievement!”
Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Brilliant. ... A work of staggering depth. ... Pattison deftly weaves strands of science, sociology and political science into a compelling tale that stretches over decades. ... His prose is lively and accessible. ... An ambitious work that fully justifies the extraordinary effort that went into it, both by the fossil men and by the writer who chronicled their work."
New York Times Book Review
"[A] riveting account. ... In places, Fossil Men seems more reality television show than a work of popular science, as we follow an outrageous cast. ... The story lines border on the insane: There are civil wars, gunfights, at least one grenade rolling around the feet of scientists as they drive into the desert. ... Pattison... is every bit as good as the best scientist-writers. He describes the intricacies of the human wrist and foot with the skill of a poet... [and] explains in clear and compelling prose how scientists build family trees of ancient species."
Booklist
"An exciting book, full of colorful personalities, momentous discoveries, and new ideas that challenge us to reconsider everything we believed about the evolution of humankind."
Discover magazine
"Equal parts biography and adventure novel, Pattison illustrates the colorful characters — flaws and all — whose research has shaped our origin story as we know it today."
PETER NICHOLS
At the core of Kermit Pattison’s rip-roaring tale is the prickly, obsessive, brilliant American paleonaut, Tim White, who braves revolutions, tribal warfare, and bitter scientific rivals to unearth ancient bones, without which there would be no pre-history, no civilization, no humanity.”
Journal of Human Evolution
"Perceptive and revealing. ... Pattison has a commendable and enviable grasp of a wide range of difficult methods and concepts, and he does a fine job of presenting and explaining the many scientific developments that have enriched the way we interpret the hominin fossil record.
Twin Cities Pioneer Press
"Fascinating. ... Exciting."
Danville Commercial-News
"Any science-minded person... will truly enjoy Fossil Men."
Christian Science Monitor
Pattison weaves the multiple intrigues of science, politics, and personalities into a masterly structured tale…. Leaves readers with a new sense of wonder at the origins of humankind.
Science News
"Blends science and drama to tell the story of a major paleoanthropology find. ... For anyone interested in fossil hunting, evolutionary science and a hominid skeleton like no other, this book delivers."
Booklist
"An exciting book, full of colorful personalities, momentous discoveries, and new ideas that challenge us to reconsider everything we believed about the evolution of humankind."
Library Journal
09/01/2020
In this debut, journalist Pattison follows the story of abrasive and methodical scientist Tim White's frequent conflict and occasional collaborations with other paleoanthropolologists as his team search out early hominid fossils in Africa. They discover Ardipithecus ramidus, or Ardi, further upstream in the same Ethiopian valley as the Lucy fossil, but 1.2 million years older, and seek clues to understand where she fits into human ancestry. Besides this central scientific adventure, Pattison, who spent time in the field with White's team, explores other issues as well: How much training and authority is given to researchers from the countries where our ancient roots reside? How should we esteem the fieldwork to uncover and document the fossils vs. the theoretical and computer-aided approaches used to interpret them? And what duty do paleontologists have to the scientific community to share their finds and when? Additionally, there are the scientific debates on the relationships between the extant modern ape species (humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas) and when and where their lineages diverged; genetic analyses seem to tell one story that must be brought in line with the physical evidence. VERDICT Compelling science centered on a polarizing personality, this is perfect for National Geographic readers who want to dig deep into the human evolutionary tree.—Wade Lee-Smith, Univ. of Toledo Lib.
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2020-08-25
An entertaining update on a process as “red in tooth and claw” as nature itself.
Perhaps once a decade, a journalist recounts the history and latest findings in human evolution, a subject of apparently endless appeal—Martin Meredith’s Born in Africa (2011) remains a page-turner. Pattison caught the bug in 2012 and devoted seven years to gathering material. The result is a satisfying education on the status of the human family tree over the past 5 million years, and the author provides detailed explanations of how anthropologists tease information from bones, teeth, and local geology. It’s a journalistic maxim that readers prefer personalities to events, and Pattison describes plenty of ambitious, media-savvy researchers whose often bitter hostility has stalled progress but makes for lively reading. He passes quickly over the father of African anthropology, the colorful Louis Leakey, spends more time on his wife and family and their pioneering findings, and gives a major role to Donald Johanson, whose 1974 discovery of a partial skeleton of “Lucy,” a small, primitive human ancestor, and the resulting bestselling books made him a familiar name. Mostly Pattison focuses on anatomist Owen Lovejoy and anthropologist Tim White, whose energy, work ethic, and opinions made him a lightning rod for controversy even before his team’s 1994 finding of “Ardi,” a skeleton older than Lucy whose age approaches the era when hominids and chimpanzees diverged from their presumed common ancestor. Colleagues fumed for 15 years as his team studied the bones, and the resulting massive 2009 report aggravated matters. The anthropological community learned that “they were looking up the wrong tree for human origins, and that their quest to link early humanity to modern apes was nullified by Ardi because the last common ancestor looked like no modern species.” Pattison delivers a gripping and reasonably balanced account of the predictably hostile reception, and this remains a controversial interpretation, although it has made some converts.
Big personalities, simmering turmoil, and fascinating popular science.
