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Fossil Men: The Quest for the Oldest Skeleton and the Origins of Humankind
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HarperCollins 2020
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Description

"Riveting. ... Pattison's uncanny ability [is] to write evocatively about science. ... In this, he is every bit as good as the best scientist writers." —New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

"Brilliant. ... A work of staggering depth." —Minneapolis Star Tribune

A decade in the making, Fossil Men is a scientific detective story played out in anatomy and the natural history of the human body: the first full-length account of the discovery of a startlingly unpredicted human ancestor more than a million years older than Lucy

It is the ultimate mystery: where do we come from? In 1994, a team led by fossil-hunting legend Tim White uncovered a set of ancient bones in Ethiopia's Afar region. Radiometric dating of nearby rocks indicated the resulting skeleton, classified as Ardipithecus ramidus—nicknamed "Ardi"—was an astounding 4.4 million years old, more than a million years older than the world-famous "Lucy." The team spent the next 15 years studying the bones in strict secrecy, all while continuing to rack up landmark fossil discoveries in the field and becoming increasingly ensnared in bitter disputes with scientific peers and Ethiopian bureaucrats. When finally revealed to the public, Ardi stunned scientists around the world and challenged a half-century of orthodoxy about human evolution—how we started walking upright, how we evolved our nimble hands, and, most significantly, whether we were descended from an ancestor that resembled today's chimpanzee. But the discovery of Ardi wasn't just a leap forward in understanding the roots of humanity—it was an attack on scientific convention and the leading authorities of human origins, triggering an epic feud about the oldest family skeleton.

In Fossil Men, acclaimed journalist Kermit Pattison brings us a cast of eccentric, obsessive scientists, including White, an uncompromising perfectionist whose virtuoso skills in the field were matched only by his propensity for making enemies; Gen Suwa, a Japanese savant whose deep expertise about teeth rivaled anyone on Earth; Owen Lovejoy, a onetime creationist-turned-paleoanthropologist with radical insights into human locomotion; Berhane Asfaw, who survived imprisonment and torture to become Ethiopia's most senior paleoanthropologist; Don Johanson, the discoverer of Lucy, who had a rancorous falling out with the Ardi team; and the Leakeys, for decades the most famous family in paleoanthropology.

Based on a half-decade of research in Africa, Europe and North America, Fossil Men is not only a brilliant investigation into the origins of the human lineage, but the oldest of human emotions: curiosity, jealousy, perseverance and wonder.

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Street Date:
11/10/2020
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780062410306
ASIN:
B01I9BDV3Y
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APA Citation (style guide)

Kermit Pattison. (2020). Fossil Men: The Quest for the Oldest Skeleton and the Origins of Humankind. HarperCollins.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Kermit Pattison. 2020. Fossil Men: The Quest for the Oldest Skeleton and the Origins of Humankind. HarperCollins.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Kermit Pattison, Fossil Men: The Quest for the Oldest Skeleton and the Origins of Humankind. HarperCollins, 2020.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Kermit Pattison. Fossil Men: The Quest for the Oldest Skeleton and the Origins of Humankind. HarperCollins, 2020.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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        Kermit Pattison is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, Fast Company, and Inc., among many other publications. He spent more a decade doing research for Fossil Men, a large portion of which was spent in the field in Ethiopia with the team that discovered Ardi. This is his first book. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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"Riveting. ... Pattison's uncanny ability [is] to write evocatively about science. ... In this, he is every bit as good as the best scientist writers." —New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

"Brilliant. ... A work of staggering depth." —Minneapolis Star Tribune

A decade in the making, Fossil Men is a scientific detective story played out in anatomy and the natural history of the human body: the first full-length account of the discovery of a startlingly unpredicted human ancestor more than a million years older than Lucy

It is the ultimate mystery: where do we come from? In 1994, a team led by fossil-hunting legend Tim White uncovered a set of ancient bones in Ethiopia's Afar region. Radiometric dating of nearby rocks indicated the resulting skeleton, classified as Ardipithecus ramidus—nicknamed "Ardi"—was an astounding 4.4 million years old, more than a million years older than the world-famous "Lucy." The team spent the next 15 years studying the bones in strict secrecy, all while continuing to rack up landmark fossil discoveries in the field and becoming increasingly ensnared in bitter disputes with scientific peers and Ethiopian bureaucrats. When finally revealed to the public, Ardi stunned scientists around the world and challenged a half-century of orthodoxy about human evolution—how we started walking upright, how we evolved our nimble hands, and, most significantly, whether we were descended from an ancestor that resembled today's chimpanzee. But the discovery of Ardi wasn't just a leap forward in understanding the roots of humanity—it was an attack on scientific convention and the leading authorities of human origins, triggering an epic feud about the oldest family skeleton.

In Fossil Men, acclaimed journalist Kermit Pattison brings us a cast of eccentric, obsessive scientists, including White, an uncompromising perfectionist whose virtuoso skills in the field were matched only by his propensity for making enemies; Gen Suwa, a Japanese savant whose deep expertise about teeth rivaled anyone on Earth; Owen Lovejoy, a onetime creationist-turned-paleoanthropologist with radical insights into human locomotion; Berhane Asfaw, who survived imprisonment and torture to become Ethiopia's most senior paleoanthropologist; Don Johanson, the discoverer of Lucy, who had a rancorous falling out with the Ardi team; and the Leakeys, for decades the most famous family in paleoanthropology.

Based on a half-decade of research in Africa, Europe and North America, Fossil Men is not only a brilliant investigation into the origins of the human lineage, but the oldest of human emotions: curiosity, jealousy, perseverance and wonder.

reviews
      • premium: False
      • source: New York Times Book Review
      • content:

        "[A] riveting account. ... In places, Fossil Men seems more reality television show than a work of popular science, as we follow an outrageous cast. ... The story lines border on the insane: There are civil wars, gunfights, at least one grenade rolling around the feet of scientists as they drive into the desert. ... Pattison... is every bit as good as the best scientist-writers. He describes the intricacies of the human wrist and foot with the skill of a poet... [and] explains in clear and compelling prose how scientists build family trees of ancient species." — New York Times Book Review

        "Entertaining. ... Satisfying. ... Gripping. ... Big personalities, simmering turmoil, and fascinating popular science." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

        "At the core of Kermit Pattison's rip-roaring tale is the prickly, obsessive, brilliant American paleonaut, Tim White, who braves revolutions, tribal warfare, and bitter scientific rivals to unearth ancient bones, without which there would be no pre-history, no civilization, no humanity."
        PETER NICHOLS, New York Times bestselling author of The Rocks and Evolution's Captain

        "Reads like an Indiana Jones sequel. ...This is a book about the ongoing quest to find us—and what human nature is at its core." — Politico

        "Brilliant. ... A work of staggering depth. ... Pattison deftly weaves strands of science, sociology and political science into a compelling tale that stretches over decades. ... His prose is lively and accessible. ... An ambitious work that fully justifies the extraordinary effort that went into it, both by the fossil men and by the writer who chronicled their work." — Minneapolis Star Tribune

        "Fossil Men is a wonderful mix of history, science and politics, full of pathos and insight in equal measure. I found it difficult to put down, and I didn't want it to end....This book should be required reading for all those who care about how science may help answer the question of who we are as humans. A monumental achievement!"
        HASOK CHANG, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge

        "An exciting book, full of colorful personalities, momentous discoveries, and new ideas that challenge us to reconsider everything we believed about the evolution of humankind." — Booklist

        "Compelling science. ... Perfect for National Geographic readers who want to dig deep into the human evolutionary tree." — Library Journal

        "A riveting story of academic, political, and personal intrigue." — Christian Science Monitor (Best Books of November 2020 Roundup)

        "A dazzling journey into deep geological time. ... Pattinson combines his meticulously researched examination of the science of ancient humans with a visceral and penetrating tale of... intrigue, academic rivalry, pathological jealousy and intellectual inertia. He uses his first-hand experience of being on site in Ethiopia to detail the art, science, joys and challenges of fossil-hunting. ... Fascinating. ... Unexpected and revelatory." — The Spectator (London)

        "Equal parts biography and adventure novel, Pattison illustrates the colorful characters — flaws and all — whose research has shaped our origin story as we know it today." — Discover magazine

        "[A] lively debut. ... Pattison ably combines the adventure yarn with scientific minutiae. ... Those interested in human origins should check out this vivid and thorough study." ...

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        September 15, 2020
        An entertaining update on a process as "red in tooth and claw" as nature itself. Perhaps once a decade, a journalist recounts the history and latest findings in human evolution, a subject of apparently endless appeal--Martin Meredith's Born in Africa (2011) remains a page-turner. Pattison caught the bug in 2012 and devoted seven years to gathering material. The result is a satisfying education on the status of the human family tree over the past 5 million years, and the author provides detailed explanations of how anthropologists tease information from bones, teeth, and local geology. It's a journalistic maxim that readers prefer personalities to events, and Pattison describes plenty of ambitious, media-savvy researchers whose often bitter hostility has stalled progress but makes for lively reading. He passes quickly over the father of African anthropology, the colorful Louis Leakey, spends more time on his wife and family and their pioneering findings, and gives a major role to Donald Johanson, whose 1974 discovery of a partial skeleton of "Lucy," a small, primitive human ancestor, and the resulting bestselling books made him a familiar name. Mostly Pattison focuses on anatomist Owen Lovejoy and anthropologist Tim White, whose energy, work ethic, and opinions made him a lightning rod for controversy even before his team's 1994 finding of "Ardi," a skeleton older than Lucy whose age approaches the era when hominids and chimpanzees diverged from their presumed common ancestor. Colleagues fumed for 15 years as his team studied the bones, and the resulting massive 2009 report aggravated matters. The anthropological community learned that "they were looking up the wrong tree for human origins, and that their quest to link early humanity to modern apes was nullified by Ardi because the last common ancestor looked like no modern species." Pattison delivers a gripping and reasonably balanced account of the predictably hostile reception, and this remains a controversial interpretation, although it has made some converts. Big personalities, simmering turmoil, and fascinating popular science.

        COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        September 1, 2020

        In this debut, journalist Pattison follows the story of abrasive and methodical scientist Tim White's frequent conflict and occasional collaborations with other paleoanthropolologists as his team search out early hominid fossils in Africa. They discover Ardipithecus ramidus, or Ardi, further upstream in the same Ethiopian valley as the Lucy fossil, but 1.2 million years older, and seek clues to understand where she fits into human ancestry. Besides this central scientific adventure, Pattison, who spent time in the field with White's team, explores other issues as well: How much training and authority is given to researchers from the countries where our ancient roots reside? How should we esteem the fieldwork to uncover and document the fossils vs. the theoretical and computer-aided approaches used to interpret them? And what duty do paleontologists have to the scientific community to share their finds and when? Additionally, there are the scientific debates on the relationships between the extant modern ape species (humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas) and when and where their lineages diverged; genetic analyses seem to tell one story that must be brought in line with the physical evidence. VERDICT Compelling science centered on a polarizing personality, this is perfect for National Geographic readers who want to dig deep into the human evolutionary tree.--Wade Lee-Smith, Univ. of Toledo Lib.

        Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        October 1, 2020
        For a long time, Lucy, a hominid skeleton found in 1974 in the Afar region of Ethiopia, was the oldest human ancestor ever discovered. Then, in 1994, a team of paleontologists working in roughly the same area uncovered a skeleton of a hominin that predates Lucy by a million years (give or take). She was given the designation Ardipithecus ramidus, but she's more commonly known as Ardi; and, although she is not a direct ancestor of humans (she's a new genus, a hitherto-unknown hybrid of arboreal ape and terrestrial biped ), she's opened new windows into the history of human evolution. This is the story of her discovery. Like Matiland and Johanson and Edey's Lucy, it's an exciting book, full of colorful personalities, momentous discoveries, and new ideas that challenge us to reconsider everything we believed about the evolution of humankind. Although the author doesn't shy away from technical terminology, the book isn't written for experts in the field; it's for the lay reader with a healthy interest in the subject. Lucy became a best-seller, and Fossil Men may well follow in its footsteps.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        November 2, 2020
        In this lively debut, journalist Pattison digs into the story of Ardi, a 4.4-million-year-old hominid skeleton with profound evolutionary ramifications. At the heart of this tale is Tim White, a Berkeley professor with a “monastic devotion to fossils,” who led the team that discovered Ardi in Ethiopia’s Middle Awash region in 1994 and spent 15 years studying the remains. Pattison describes the digs that unearthed Ardi, an ancestor of modern homo sapiens more than a million years older than the more famous Lucy, and captures White and company’s grueling expeditions to Ethiopia, where they had to navigate political tensions to retrieve the fossils and, after nine years, take them abroad for study. Pattison ably combines the adventure yarn with scientific minutiae, tracking the team’s findings, which ultimately refuted the theory that modern apes are close relics of a common human ancestor. Pattison doesn’t neglect the academic backlash against this challenge to conventional wisdom (one professor called them “so far wrong as to be laughable”) and makes vivid characters of the Ardi team. Though Pattison goes deep on the science, the abundance of detail gets to be a bit much. Nevertheless, those interested in human origins should check out this vivid and thorough study. Agent: Dan Conaway, Writers House.

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"Riveting. ... Pattison's uncanny ability [is] to write evocatively about science. ... In this, he is every bit as good as the best scientist writers." —New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

"Brilliant. ... A work of staggering depth." —Minneapolis Star Tribune

A decade in the making, Fossil Men is a scientific detective story played out in anatomy and the natural history of the human body: the first full-length account of the discovery of a startlingly unpredicted human ancestor more than a million years older than Lucy

It is the ultimate mystery: where do we come from? In 1994, a team led by fossil-hunting legend Tim White uncovered a set of ancient bones in Ethiopia's Afar region. Radiometric dating of nearby rocks indicated the resulting skeleton, classified as Ardipithecus ramidus—nicknamed "Ardi"—was an astounding 4.4 million years old, more than a million...

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