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The Human Lineage
"This textbook, aimed at advanced undergraduates and postgraduates in paleoanthropology courses, tackles a rather difficult task—that of presenting the substantial body of paleontological, genetic, geological and archaeological evidence regarding human evolution, and the associated scientific history, in a logical and readable way without sacrificing either clarity or detail... the sheer quality of the writing and explanatory synthesis in this book will undoubtedly make it a valuable resource for students for many years."
—PaleoAnthropology , 2010
This book focuses on the last ten million years of human history, from the hominoid radiations to the emergence and diversification of modern humanity. It draws upon the fossil record to shed light on the key scientific issues, principles, methods, and history in paleoanthropology. The book proceeds through the fossil record of human evolution by historical stages representing the acquisition of major human features that explain the success and distinctive properties of modern Homo sapiens. Key features: Written by established leaders in the field, providing depth of expertise on evolutionary theory and anatomy through to functional morphology, this textbook is essential reading for all advanced undergraduate students and beginning graduate students in biological anthropology.
—PaleoAnthropology , 2010
This book focuses on the last ten million years of human history, from the hominoid radiations to the emergence and diversification of modern humanity. It draws upon the fossil record to shed light on the key scientific issues, principles, methods, and history in paleoanthropology. The book proceeds through the fossil record of human evolution by historical stages representing the acquisition of major human features that explain the success and distinctive properties of modern Homo sapiens. Key features: Written by established leaders in the field, providing depth of expertise on evolutionary theory and anatomy through to functional morphology, this textbook is essential reading for all advanced undergraduate students and beginning graduate students in biological anthropology.
609 pages, Hardcover
First published June 2, 2007
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June 13, 2023
AN EXCELLENT SUMMATION OF CURRENT EVIDENCE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
Authors Matt Cartmill and Fred H. Smith wrote in the Preface to this 2009 book, “This book about paleoanthropology has been written for readers at the scholarly end of that spectrum, especially for students who have already had a beginning course in the subject. But we tried to keep it accessible to any educated reader … this book… deals mainly with the facts of the paleontology … Comparative anatomy, molecular biology, historical geology, archaeology, and other fields of science are brought in mainly to provide necessary background and context for the study of the human fossil record… An oft-repeated creationist canard insists that all known human fossils would fit on a billiard table. This was probably true in the late 19th century, but it has not been true for a hundred years. Known human fossils number in the thousands and represents the remains of hundreds of individuals… we can assure our readers that those collections can no longer be laid out on a billiard table. It would be hard to cram them all into a boxcar.” (Pg. xi)
In ‘Blind Alley #1,’ they state, “The … flood story in the Old Testament is [a] member of this family of Near Eastern legends… The biblical flood story has implications that can be checked out. If all the fossilized organisms died at the same time a few thousand years ago, then all the fossil-bearing rocks should contain fossils of people and other extant creatures. But they don’t. If the Ark saved all the world’s animals from destruction, there shouldn’t be any extinct species in the fossil record… If all the animals dispersed from the Ark’s landing site… then the world’s faunas should become less and less diverse the further away they are from [Mt. Ararat].” (Pg. 2)
They state, “Many organisms have features that serve no purpose in their lives, even though homologous structures are functionally important in other creatures. For example, human ears are immobile… Our ear muscles do nothing useful. Why do we have them? The evolutionary answer is clear. We have them because we are descended from mammals with … functional ear muscles… such evolutionary leftovers are called ‘vestigial’ structures… The human yolk sac and allantois provide examples… Human embryos no longer need to draw food from the yolk sac and deposit wastes in the allantois. But these two sacs, still play a crucial role in development, because their blood vessels grow out to become the veins and arteries of the placenta.” (Pg. 33-
34)
They explain, “We can also use a so-called ‘molecular clock’ to estimate how long one lineage branched off from another… There are some problems with molecular clocks. The biggest problem lies in determining a date for that one branch point, which usually has to be estimated by using paleontological or geological data. The chain of inferences involved in these estimates introduces multiple sources of error into the results…” (Pg. 41-42)
They note, “The arboreal theory of primate origins … held that the distinctive peculiarities of Primates were the natural result of living in trees… The trouble with this story is that most tree-dwelling mammals don’t look like primates. Squirrels, for example… grip tree trunks … not with their thumbs and big toes… but by digging in their claws… why would arboreal life have driven the early primates to abandon it for something different? Arboreal life by itself can’t explain the peculiarities of primates…” (Pg. 109)
They recount, “scientists … tended to think of big brains and technology as the fundamental apomorphies of the human lineage… When early hominins began to come to light, these assumptions warped scientists’ views of the fossils. These extinct creatures had braincases no larger than those of some living apes. Their bones were not found in association with stone tools… experts therefore… dismissed them as … a sterile evolutionary sideline… Because these apelike early hominins did not show the key human traits of big brains and stone tools, they were for many years read out of the story of human evolution.” (Pg. 129-130)
They state, “Ramapithecus appears to have been an artificial construct, manufactured by sticking a small canine from an African ape onto maxillae from two gracile females of the Asian … Sivapithecus… In retrospect, ‘Ramapithecus’ looks like one more expression of a recurrent wish to think that humans diverged from the apes a lot further back in the past than we actually did.” (Pg. 136)
They report, “new fossils helped to bring about a revolution in scientific thinking about Australopithecus… paleoanthropologists soon came to see bipedality and small, incisor-like canine teeth, not big brains and intelligence, as the essential human properties…bipedality had been favored by selection because is freed the hands for holding weapons, and hand-held weapons had replaced big canines in fighting.” (Pg. 150-151)
They recount, “The attack on the hominin pretensions of Australopithecus was led by … British anatomist [Solly] Zuckerman… Zuckerman first argued that the metrics of the Australopithecus dentition were ape-like in crucial respects… but his argument collapsed when a simple mathematical error was found in it… He then insisted that because … Paranthropus … had a sagittal crest, it must have had an apelike muchal crest as well… and therefore could not have been an upright biped… This argument, too, collapsed when R. Holloway… demonstrated that some gibbons have a sagittal crest but no muchal crest… The most fundamental objection to Zuckerman’s arguments came from Le Gros Clark… [who] insisted … [that] to place a fossil on the hominin branch… all that was needed was to show that it shared SOME hominin synapomorphies.” (Pg. 157)
They state, “For most of the second half of the twentieth century, all of the early humans… were lumped into a single species, Homo erectus… Today, however, there is as much debate surrounding the fossils once assigned to H. erectus as there is for any other part of human evolutionary theory… Those who want to split H. erectus into multiple species tend to see evolution as punctuated… They accordingly want to recognize lots of human species..” (Pg. 234-235) Later, they add, “There is a general trend today to recognize more species within the genus Homo. Fossil remains that would have been grouped together as H. erectus ten years ago are now sometimes partitioned among as many as five species… the classification of the genus Home is becoming increasingly complex once again.” (Pg. 288)
They acknowledge, “More than once in this book we have … declared that more fossils need to be found to settle the matter… [But] The case of Neanderthals should give us cause for reflection. We have all these things for Neandertals, and yet the fundamental questions persist.” (Pg. 337) Later, they add, “The case for deliberate internment of Neandertal dead … would be more convincing if there were evidence that the Neandertals regularly buried artifacts or food with the dead. But… Neandertal burials are simple affairs and rarely contain any evidence of grave goods.” (Pg. 397)
They conclude, “In the history of life on this planet, the story of the human lineage is uniquely complex…. Most of our story is shared with those of millions of other organisms. But… our line has emerged … [as a] bipedal, brainy, migrating, talking, and symbolic ape… Our final hope is that the readers of this book can transcend our limitations to arrive at new ideas and questions of their own and thereby help to move paleoanthropology toward a deeper understanding of what our biological history tells us about being human.” (Pg. 479)
This is an EXCELLENT summation of recent evidence for human evolution, that will be of great interest to those seriously studying the subject.
Authors Matt Cartmill and Fred H. Smith wrote in the Preface to this 2009 book, “This book about paleoanthropology has been written for readers at the scholarly end of that spectrum, especially for students who have already had a beginning course in the subject. But we tried to keep it accessible to any educated reader … this book… deals mainly with the facts of the paleontology … Comparative anatomy, molecular biology, historical geology, archaeology, and other fields of science are brought in mainly to provide necessary background and context for the study of the human fossil record… An oft-repeated creationist canard insists that all known human fossils would fit on a billiard table. This was probably true in the late 19th century, but it has not been true for a hundred years. Known human fossils number in the thousands and represents the remains of hundreds of individuals… we can assure our readers that those collections can no longer be laid out on a billiard table. It would be hard to cram them all into a boxcar.” (Pg. xi)
In ‘Blind Alley #1,’ they state, “The … flood story in the Old Testament is [a] member of this family of Near Eastern legends… The biblical flood story has implications that can be checked out. If all the fossilized organisms died at the same time a few thousand years ago, then all the fossil-bearing rocks should contain fossils of people and other extant creatures. But they don’t. If the Ark saved all the world’s animals from destruction, there shouldn’t be any extinct species in the fossil record… If all the animals dispersed from the Ark’s landing site… then the world’s faunas should become less and less diverse the further away they are from [Mt. Ararat].” (Pg. 2)
They state, “Many organisms have features that serve no purpose in their lives, even though homologous structures are functionally important in other creatures. For example, human ears are immobile… Our ear muscles do nothing useful. Why do we have them? The evolutionary answer is clear. We have them because we are descended from mammals with … functional ear muscles… such evolutionary leftovers are called ‘vestigial’ structures… The human yolk sac and allantois provide examples… Human embryos no longer need to draw food from the yolk sac and deposit wastes in the allantois. But these two sacs, still play a crucial role in development, because their blood vessels grow out to become the veins and arteries of the placenta.” (Pg. 33-
34)
They explain, “We can also use a so-called ‘molecular clock’ to estimate how long one lineage branched off from another… There are some problems with molecular clocks. The biggest problem lies in determining a date for that one branch point, which usually has to be estimated by using paleontological or geological data. The chain of inferences involved in these estimates introduces multiple sources of error into the results…” (Pg. 41-42)
They note, “The arboreal theory of primate origins … held that the distinctive peculiarities of Primates were the natural result of living in trees… The trouble with this story is that most tree-dwelling mammals don’t look like primates. Squirrels, for example… grip tree trunks … not with their thumbs and big toes… but by digging in their claws… why would arboreal life have driven the early primates to abandon it for something different? Arboreal life by itself can’t explain the peculiarities of primates…” (Pg. 109)
They recount, “scientists … tended to think of big brains and technology as the fundamental apomorphies of the human lineage… When early hominins began to come to light, these assumptions warped scientists’ views of the fossils. These extinct creatures had braincases no larger than those of some living apes. Their bones were not found in association with stone tools… experts therefore… dismissed them as … a sterile evolutionary sideline… Because these apelike early hominins did not show the key human traits of big brains and stone tools, they were for many years read out of the story of human evolution.” (Pg. 129-130)
They state, “Ramapithecus appears to have been an artificial construct, manufactured by sticking a small canine from an African ape onto maxillae from two gracile females of the Asian … Sivapithecus… In retrospect, ‘Ramapithecus’ looks like one more expression of a recurrent wish to think that humans diverged from the apes a lot further back in the past than we actually did.” (Pg. 136)
They report, “new fossils helped to bring about a revolution in scientific thinking about Australopithecus… paleoanthropologists soon came to see bipedality and small, incisor-like canine teeth, not big brains and intelligence, as the essential human properties…bipedality had been favored by selection because is freed the hands for holding weapons, and hand-held weapons had replaced big canines in fighting.” (Pg. 150-151)
They recount, “The attack on the hominin pretensions of Australopithecus was led by … British anatomist [Solly] Zuckerman… Zuckerman first argued that the metrics of the Australopithecus dentition were ape-like in crucial respects… but his argument collapsed when a simple mathematical error was found in it… He then insisted that because … Paranthropus … had a sagittal crest, it must have had an apelike muchal crest as well… and therefore could not have been an upright biped… This argument, too, collapsed when R. Holloway… demonstrated that some gibbons have a sagittal crest but no muchal crest… The most fundamental objection to Zuckerman’s arguments came from Le Gros Clark… [who] insisted … [that] to place a fossil on the hominin branch… all that was needed was to show that it shared SOME hominin synapomorphies.” (Pg. 157)
They state, “For most of the second half of the twentieth century, all of the early humans… were lumped into a single species, Homo erectus… Today, however, there is as much debate surrounding the fossils once assigned to H. erectus as there is for any other part of human evolutionary theory… Those who want to split H. erectus into multiple species tend to see evolution as punctuated… They accordingly want to recognize lots of human species..” (Pg. 234-235) Later, they add, “There is a general trend today to recognize more species within the genus Homo. Fossil remains that would have been grouped together as H. erectus ten years ago are now sometimes partitioned among as many as five species… the classification of the genus Home is becoming increasingly complex once again.” (Pg. 288)
They acknowledge, “More than once in this book we have … declared that more fossils need to be found to settle the matter… [But] The case of Neanderthals should give us cause for reflection. We have all these things for Neandertals, and yet the fundamental questions persist.” (Pg. 337) Later, they add, “The case for deliberate internment of Neandertal dead … would be more convincing if there were evidence that the Neandertals regularly buried artifacts or food with the dead. But… Neandertal burials are simple affairs and rarely contain any evidence of grave goods.” (Pg. 397)
They conclude, “In the history of life on this planet, the story of the human lineage is uniquely complex…. Most of our story is shared with those of millions of other organisms. But… our line has emerged … [as a] bipedal, brainy, migrating, talking, and symbolic ape… Our final hope is that the readers of this book can transcend our limitations to arrive at new ideas and questions of their own and thereby help to move paleoanthropology toward a deeper understanding of what our biological history tells us about being human.” (Pg. 479)
This is an EXCELLENT summation of recent evidence for human evolution, that will be of great interest to those seriously studying the subject.
December 13, 2023
The Human Lineage provides an in-depth overview of human evolution for serious students and researchers. This is not a book aimed at a non-academic audience, and I would honestly say that it might not even be aimed at an undergraduate just starting out in biological anthropology, as it necessitates a good bit of forehand knowledge and understanding if the reader is not to become completely overwhelmed by the sheer quantity and depth of information contained in the book. The Human Lineage is a sizeable commitment and doesn't make for either a general introduction or an easy read-through. That said, I found the book highly informative, and I'm certain that I will be using it for years to come, as it's organised in a way that really lends itself to the later use of the book as a frame of reference on individual specimens and scientific debates. I also think that, because of its broad scope, it helps you to catch up on current issues and new discoveries in areas of human evolution outside of your own speciality. For me, as someone who specialises in later human evolution as well as the evolution of the hominin skull, I found the chapters on Australopithecines and sections on functional constraints in the postcranial skeleton especially interesting, and those sections really helped me to fill in gaps in my knowledge and come to a better and more holistic understanding. Highly, highly recommended to higher-level students and scientists.
February 26, 2024
This is a wonderfully clear and detailed look at the hominins that make up the human lineage. I especially appreciated the digression into signs of human behaviour in our precursors.
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October 16, 2014Found it by searching whether humans are good at carrying heavy things (evidence is on this somewhere in the book, the google book preview didn't say where).
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews