Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins

From the savannas of Africa to modern-day labs for biomechanical analysis and molecular genetics, Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins reveals how anthropologists are furiously redrawing the human family tree. Their discoveries have spawned a host of new questions: Should chimpanzees be included as a human species? Was it the physical difficulty of human childbirth that encouraged the development of social groups in early human species? Did humans and Neanderthals interbreed? Why did humans supplant Neanderthals in the end? In answering such questions, Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins sheds new light on one of the most important questions of all: What makes us human?

Award-winning science writer Carl Zimmer takes us on an amazing journey back in time - and into the future - to look at where human beings came from, and where we may be going.

From ancient fossils unearthed in the Sahara Desert to the analysis of DNA by robots at the National Human Genome Research Institute in suburban Maryland, Zimmer weaves together the varied clues about our human ancestry in an entertaining, informative and highly readable volume that will appeal to expert and general reader alike.

Carl Zimmer is the author of three well-received books on evolution. A Guggenheim fellow in 2002, he writes regularly for magazines, including National Geographic, Science, Newsweek, and Natural History.