About the Author

IAN TATTERSALL is curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, and the author of many books and articles. Becoming Human won the distinguished W.W. Howells Prize of the American Anthropological Association. An expert on both fossil humans and lemurs, Tattersall has done fieldwork in places as varied as Madagascar, Yemen, and Vietnam.

Reviews

PRAISE FOR BECOMING HUMAN
There is no more literate anthropologist writing on human evolution today than Ian Tattersall. . . . Becoming Human is at once absorbing in its details, provocative in its thoughtful speculations and delightfully informal in style."
-San Francisco Chronicle
Although many popular anthropological accounts of the human species have been written, few are as engaging as that of Ian Tattersall."-Natural History
Ian Tattersall combines his unique knowledge of the human fossil record, Paleolithic archaeology, primate behavior, prehistoric art . . . to offer a convincing scenario of how we have come to hold dominion over the earth."
-Donald Johanson, Scientific American --

Tattersall, the curator of human evolution at the American Museum of Natural History and a prolific author (Becoming Human, etc.), laments in his preface that the book's contents "take you where they will" and do not necessarily lead from one to the next but he is just being modest. In truth, these introductory essays on human origins complement each other nicely. The first chapter, a primer on scientific basics, emphasizes the collective nature of scientific endeavor and answers debunkers of evolution, who would dismiss it as "only a theory." An essay on modern evolutionary theory zeroes in on the idea that evolutionary change comes in sporadic spikes (rather than gradually), which lays ground for his essays on speciation in human evolution. With his essays on the first hominid bipeds and toolmakers, Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons (the first "moderns"), Tattersall arrives at his specialty, and it shows, making for the most satisfying reading of this collection. ("Written in Our Genes?" is a tiresome and predictable attack on evolutionary psychology, however.) These essays are not intended to push the bounds of the current paradigm, but rather to entertain and to fascinate, which they do often. (Nov.) Forecast: Fans of Becoming Human and other Tattersall texts will recognize his name and pick this one up; neophyte browsers may decide that the Museum of Natural History affiliation sets the author of this book apart from a crowded pack. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.