Author: Kermit Pattison
Kermit Pattison’s Fossil Men is a behind-the-scenes account of the discovery of the oldest skeleton of a human ancestor, named Ardi — a find that shook the world of paleoanthropology and radically altered our understanding of human evolution.
Radiometric dating of nearby rocks indicated the skeleton, classified as Ardipithecus ramidus, was 4.4 million years old.
The findings challenged many a ssumptions about human evolution — how we started walking upright, how we evolved our nimble hands, and, most significantly, whether we were descended from an ancestor that resembled today’s chimpanzee — and repudiated a half-century of paleoanthropological orthodoxy.
An intriguing tale of scientific discovery, obsession and rivalry that moves from the sun-baked desert of Africa and a nation caught in a brutal civil war, to modern high-tech labs and academic lecture halls, Fossil Men is popular science at its best, and a must read for science fans.
