THE ORIGIN OF MODERN HUMANS by Roger Lewin - 1993

Scientific American Library, 1993. second printing. Hardcover. Good/good condition crease inside fly. square book like dust jacket with pictograph underneath, Brown cloth cover silver titling. The interior the book is unmarked and some wonderful interesting photographs the only real defect they can see is the dust jacket were was folded when someone did not lay flat closing the book original price 3298 looks to be second printing maybe?The Origin of Modern Humans Volume 47 of Scientific American Library Series : Science : Anthropology/Archaeology Issue 47 of Scientific American Library series, ISSN 1040-3213 Author Roger Lewin Edition 2, illustrated, reprint Publisher Scientific American Library, 1993 ISBN 0716750392, 9780716750390 Length 204 pages....Ruth Reaser..LAX Vespa,Los Angeles Culver City- maybe this will do it! -At least you know what you're getting into- City- Media Mail USPS-you get the copy you were viewing carefully Drop kick-packed to protect it - in - transit...Where and when did modern humans (Homo sapiens) first appear? Who were our immediate evolutionary ancestors? What features distinguish modern humans and how did these features arise? These questions have gripped the scientific community and the public since the mid-nineteenth century, when the discovery of Neanderthal Man and the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species rocked the foundations of long-held beliefs on the subject.Many new findings, speculations, and reevaluations have sharpened our views of modern human origins since then. Nevertheless, the controversy continues, as the patchy fossil record and new evidence derived from genetic techniques have given rise to competing theories. Are we the result of a single uninterrupted lineage, with each distinct species of human leading directly to the next? Or, do species such as the Neanderthal represent offshoots of an evolutionary tree that died out without leaving successors? Did modern humanity arise roughly contemporaneously in different parts of the world or from a single species in a single location? And how do biological, linguistic, artistic, and technological factors distinguish Homo sapiens from near and distant relatives? At stake in the argument is nothing less than the very definition of what it means, biologically and culturally, to be human.In this vividly written volume, award-winning science author Roger Lewin describes the discoveries, the intellectual clashes, and the often conflicting interpretations of evidence that have shaped the current debate on modern humanity's origin. Readers will learn of astonishing findings (the original Neanderthal bones, and provocative theories (the genetically-derived speculation that we are all the children of a single African female who lived about 200,000 years ago), as well as one preposterous hoax (the Piltdown Man). Readers will also see the evolution of the modern science of paleoanthropology, which brings molecular biology, genetics, population biology, linguistics, and other disciplines into the search for the distinctive stamp of Homo sapiens in artifacts and skeletal remains.