Becoming Human

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

What defining characteristic, if any, separates us from the rest of creation? Many books on human evolution (from Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man to Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct and beyond) have sought the holy grail of a defining characteristic for the species. Here, Tattersall (The Last Neanderthal, etc.), curator in the Department of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History, takes us through the gradual development, over millions of years and countless refinements, of Homo sapiens, often consulting the fossil record for corroboration of the innovations he takes to be significant. Tattersall makes it perfectly clear that he doubts studies suggesting that chimpanzees, using American Sign Language, can communicate with humans to any meaningful degreethus preserving verbal language as a candidate. He presents himself throughout as a man of strongly held opinions, confident that the "out of Africa" model of human evolution is far superior to the "multi-regional" hypothesis, that Neanderthals could not speak as we do and that "punctuated equilibrium" (the theory that isolated genetic innovation is followed by a spread throughout a population) should become the new evolutionary paradigm. The evidence presented for such beliefs, however, is rarely gone into in enough detail for readers' scales to balance on their own. Ultimately, and unsurprisingly, Tattersall considers symbolic thought (as "epitomized by our linguistic abilities") as the best candidate for the attribute that sets us apart from other species. Although Tattersall provides some moving descriptions of early cave art and other human endeavors, he is less successful at producing a volume that stands out in a crowded field.

Library Journal

In his new book, Tattersall, curator in the Department of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History, communicates the processes and diverse products of human evolution, offering a new perspective from which to view and therefore better understand our Homo sapiens species. Through an enlightening examination of the latest fossil evidence, we gain new insights into the role of competition among species, the impact of climate, and the episodic vs. gradual nature of evolutionary changes. By comparing Homo sapiens with higher apes and early humans, Tattersall reveals our species' unique characteristics, including language, symbolic thought, art, and innovation. He describes the mixed (old with new) nature of our anatomical structures, speculates on the potential of the current environment to support further human evolution, and ponders the implications of these conditions for who we are and what we can be. This well-written book, suitable for both lay readers and scholars, should appeal to anyone desiring a better understanding of human evolution and the nature of Homo sapiens.

--Shaun Calhoun, USAF Research Lab-Tyndall Division, Technical Information Center, Panama City, Florida

Library Journal

In his new book, Tattersall, curator in the Department of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History, communicates the processes and diverse products of human evolution, offering a new perspective from which to view and therefore better understand our Homo sapiens species. Through an enlightening examination of the latest fossil evidence, we gain new insights into the role of competition among species, the impact of climate, and the episodic vs. gradual nature of evolutionary changes. By comparing Homo sapiens with higher apes and early humans, Tattersall reveals our species' unique characteristics, including language, symbolic thought, art, and innovation. He describes the mixed (old with new) nature of our anatomical structures, speculates on the potential of the current environment to support further human evolution, and ponders the implications of these conditions for who we are and what we can be. This well-written book, suitable for both lay readers and scholars, should appeal to anyone desiring a better understanding of human evolution and the nature of Homo sapiens.

--Shaun Calhoun, USAF Research Lab-Tyndall Division, Technical Information Center, Panama City, Florida

Robert J. Richards

In Becoming Human, [Richards] initially leads his readers into the dark recesses of the Combarelles cave in France....[where] a visitor will come upon an astonishing array of delicately engraved figures....Over these remarkable murals, the late ice-age artist layered geometric designs of undeciphered significance. This cave and many others in France and Spain give poignant evidence that our Cro-Magnon predecessors exhibited a distinctively human need for symbolic expression of values and beliefs. The question Tattersall sets...is this: What evolutionary history led to the appearance of a symbol-making creature?

--Robert J. Richards, The New York Times Book Review

Kirkus Reviews

The latest entry into the who-are-we-and- where-did-we-come-from debate is from Tattersall (The Fossil Trail, 1995, etc.), the highly regarded fossil expert and curator of the department of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Mincing no words and keeping the pot of controversy ready to boil over, Tattersall asserts that there is no question that the Neanderthals came to a dead end without heirs. While they coexisted 40,000 years ago with Cro-Magnons, it was the latter who replaced them and are our ancestors. Among his reasons for this assertion are the elegant artworks found in Cro-Magnon cave sites, bespeaking symbolic reasoning; a tool kit that demonstrates a quantum leap in abstract thinking and planning; and the anatomical arrangements that afford speech and therefore languageall absent from Neanderthal remains. However, in his review of the primate and hominid literature, he chooses not to make invidious comparisons (Neanderthals are not "dumb" humans) so much as to say that the various species "played by different sets of rules." Human evolution, he says, echoing colleagues Niles Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould, is no linear ascent, but an episodic affair with assorted species coexisting (but presumably not interbreeding) until the emergence of the H. sapiens. We are the end-products of unpredictable climate change, habitual upright posture (which freed our hands), brain growth, and the capacity for speech. But finally we are left with the not very hopeful picture of humanity dominating the globe. Further, we might be end products in another sense: We are so populous that there are no longer the pockets of isolated populations thatallow mutations to develop into new species. Tattersall concludes that "we are stuck with our old familiarand potentially dangerousserves, and we urgently need to learn how best to live with that fact" so that, we might add, we can continue such learned arguments on human origins to the next round.