Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human

by Richard E. Leakey, Roger Lewin (Contribution by)

Overview

Richard Leakey's personal account of his fossil hunting and landmark discoveries at Lake Turkana, his reassessment of human prehistory based on new evidence and analytic techniques, and his profound pondering of how we became "human" and what being "human" really means.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385467926
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/01/1993
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	5.66(w) x 9.18(h) x 0.92(d)

About the Author

Richard Leakey is the world’s most famous living paleoanthropologist. He resigned from his position as chairman of the National Museums of Kenya when Kenya’s president, Daniel arap Moi appointed him to head the Kenya Wildlife Service. His parents were the archaeologists Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey. His half-brother is the leading plant scientist, Colin Leakey. 

Roger Lewin, PhD, is a biochemist, the former deputy editor of the British magazine New Scientist, and the author of Making Waves: Irving Dardik and His Superwave Principle, as well as many other highly praised books on biology such as Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos and Patterns in Evolution: The New Molecular View.

Editorial Reviews

Famed paleoanthropologist Leakey relates an intellectual odyssey, describing his discoveries of human origins and his reflections on the nature of humanity. Photos. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Renowned paleonathropologist Leakey returns to his earlier work--especially his 1977 book Origins (also co-authored by science writer Lewin)--to poke holes in his previous beliefs, but more importantly to reassess how we became "human," and what, after all, being human really means. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

A superb update of the 1977 bestseller Origins, in which famed anthropologist Leakey (One Life, 1984, etc.), assisted by veteran science-writer Lewin (Bones of Contention, 1987), pondered the mysteries of human nature. Leakey is the "I" in this first-person account, which includes not only scientific speculation about prehistoric human origins and development, but also a flurry of anecdotes from his personal adventures in the field over several decades. Autobiography and analysis both pivot on the discovery in 1984 by Leakey and his associates of "the Turkana boy," a 1.5 million- year-old Homo erectus fossil. The "eureka!" of the find is palpable ("Could we really be on to a skeleton?...We hardly dared voice the speculation—the hope—out loud"), as is Leakey's awe. He details the Turkana boy's daily life, and contrasts Homo erectus culture to that of other early hominids. This leads to conjectures on other puzzles of prehistory: How did consciousness arise? Language? Art? Why did Neanderthals disappear? At times, the answers come by means of new paleontological tools like molecular biology and dental-growth analysis, and Leakey's explanations of these high-tech procedures—usually while detailing a pitched scientific battle between opposing researchers—are models of lucidity. Fans of scientific squabbling will also enjoy watching him keep the heat on archrival Don Johanson, discoverer of "Lucy," challenging him on everything from fossil classification to the derivation of the hominid line. Less enticing, perhaps, is Leakey's philosophical materialism, in which the sole reason for human intelligence is our "need to understand and outwit others in the drive forreproductive success." A few years ago, Leakey turned in his paleontological pickaxe; he now works full-time—surrounded by a retinue of bodyguards—as director of Kenya's antipoaching Wildlife Service. This may be his swan song as a fossil hunter. If so, it's a tingling farewell; if not, it's still vintage Leakey. (Forty b&w photographs—not seen.)

Kirkus Reviews