The Dawn of Human Culture [Hardcover]

As a non-academic reader , albeit who has read fairly extensively around the subject, I think they succeed rather better with the first goal than the second.

The first objective is achieved through a comprehensive survey of humankinds origins from the 5.8 million year old fossils discovered at Awash in 2001.Interestingly it does not follow a strict chronological approach, the first chapter starts with the 1924 discovery of Taung child before moving onto the later discovery of older fossils. I found this a stimulating approach, since it illustrates how older theories on evolution have had to be revised and updated over recent years.

We then move on to the development of stone tools and the reproductive edge they gave their possessors, passing through the first African Exodus, Acheulan Industries etc. A lengthy chapter is spent on our old friends the Neanderthals, which provides a useful synthesis of the latest thinking on the subject and the recent DNA discoveries that leave them firmly out on a limb. Finally we arrive at early homo sapiens sapiens and the dawn of human culture.

The book is engagingly written, and the non specialist will find some of the discussions on archaelogical techniques such as faunal dating, luminescence and magnetism interesting and not too technical.

However we only get to the real dawn by about page 218 ( of 275), perhaps fairly reflecting our late arrival on the scene. I was from the synopsis somehow expecting a bit more on this interesting and less explored period and thus felt that the second objective was less fully satisfied.

Nevertheless a very informative read and if you've never read anything on the subject an excellent introduction. While it covers a lot of the same ground as Clive Gamble's Timewalkers and Chris Stringer's African Exodus, I think there is a sufficently different perspective and enough new material to make it worthwhile if you have already read these.

Behavior, however, is a different matter. The authors present a very strong case that whatever it is that makes us fully "human" did not appear until about 50,000 years ago. At about that time, people suddenly started engaging in recognizably modern behaviors--producing stunning cave paintings, carving figurines, making complex ornaments, burying their dead with ritual, building semi-permanent structures, assembling an intricate tool kit, and expanding throughout the world. The authors readily concede that there are a few ambiguous examples of similar behavior among more ancient Neanderthals and archaic homo sapiens, but the change after 50,000 years ago is a flood compared to the trickle that came before it.

To unravel the mystery of this abrupt event, the authors start with the appearance of australopithicenes and other "hominids" that may or may not be ancestral to modern humans. They then carry the tale forward, describing "revolutions" in tool making and other behavior (of which there were very few before 50,000 years ago).

I was impressed by how careful the authors were in laying out their arguments for the lay reader. Each point is clearly made, and the authors give fair treatment to scientists with whom they disagree. They scrupulously note when they have chosen to accept one point of view over another. The result is a meticulous, fair summary of what scientists know about the origins and development of the human species--as well as an intriguing answer to the mystery of how we came to be (no, I'm not going to give away the authors' theory--read the book).

If you enjoy "The Dawn of Human Culture," there are two other books that you might want to read. The first is "Origins Reconsidered," by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin. Although the book is now a bit dated (it was published in 1992, before several significant discoveries in the late 1990s), it is a very well written tale describing the discovery of a lifetime.

The second is "Mapping Human History" --while not in the same scientific league as "The Dawn of Human Culture" or "Origins Reconsidered," this book offers an often interesting story of what our genes tell us about human history.