The Last Human: A Guide to Twenty-Two Species of Extinct Humans
by G. J. Sawyer, Viktor Deak, Esteban Sarmiento, Richard Milner
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Book Summary Information
Author: Esteban Sarmiento, G. J. Sawyer, Richard Milner, Viktor DeakIntroduction: Ian Tattersall
Afterword: Maeve Leakey
Foreword: Donald C. Johanson
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-06-28
ISBN: 0300100477
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Yale University Press
Book Reviews of The Last Human: A Guide to Twenty-Two Species of Extinct Humans
Book Review: A Hominid Family Photo Album
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is the work of the artists and scientists of the Fossil Hominid Reconstruction and Research Team. Sawyer is the physical anthropologist, Deak is the paleoartist, and Sarmiento wrote the text. They take all that is known about each species within the genera Australopithicus, Ardipithicus, and Homo, and synthesize that data into stunning, beautiful, and somewhat disturbing likenesses of individuals. Whether in forecasting the future or in reconstructing the past, the further you get from the present day, the more uncertainty is introduced. The authors admit to a blending of science and art, and they admit that the more flimsy the fossil record, the greater their artistic license. It is said that all of the known fossils of proto-humans would fit in the bed of a pickup truck, and it is with this implicit caveat in mind that you must evaluate the accuracy of the reconstructions. Also, only bone fossilizes, and this is a book about soft tissue, so there is considerable inductive logic implicit in the reconstructions. The result is simply phenomenal, and we all owe a great deal to Sawyer, Deak, and Sarmiento for their scholarship and their inspiration. My guess is that any future corrections to their work will likely appear immaterial to the scientifically literate general reader which is their target audience.
The paleoanthropological discoveries in the text of this elegant photo album of proto-humans have been published before; the reason you will want to read this book is to meet your family in the flesh, to see what your ancestors looked like. Take each reconstruction as a hypothesis; this is what they most likely looked like, based on our current interpretation of the fossil record.
This book's stunning illustrations will be certain to attract a fresh audience of paleoanthropological novices, and they will find, after their initial shock, that the authors present a rather comprehensive introductory course in the topic. It is a welcome addition to a bibliography of recent books aimed at the general reader, including "The Dawn of Human Culture", by Richard Klein, "From Lucy to Language," by Donald Johansen, "Extinct Humans," by Ian Tattersall and Jeffrey Schwartz, and "Becoming Human," by Ian Tattersal (see my Amazon reviews). This book doesn't require a vocabulary in craniodental morphology, and for the most part Sarmiento's text employs terms in common usage, in preference to scientific terms less familiar to the general reader.
What emerges from these pages is the slow, but accelerating evolution of proto-humans, by a process of brutal natural selection, including many failed "branches" in the evolutionary tree, all but one ultimately leading to extinction, leaving only ourselves.
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