Humankind: How Biology and Geography Shape Human Diversity

by Alexander H. Harcourt

An innovative and illuminating look at how the evolution of the human species has been shaped by the world around us, from anatomy and physiology, to cultural diversity and population density.

Where did the human species originate? Why are tropical peoples much more diverse than those at polar latitudes? Why can only Japanese peoples digest seaweed? How are darker skin, sunlight, and fertility related? Did Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens ever interbreed? In Humankind, U. C. Davis professor Alexander Harcourt answers these questions and more, as he explains how the expansion of the human species around the globe and our interaction with our environment explains much about why humans differ from one region of the world to another, not only biologically, but culturally.

What effects have other species had on the distribution of humans around the world, and we, in turn, on their distribution? And how have human populations affected each other’s geography, even existence? For the first time in a single book, Alexander Harcourt brings these topics together to help us understand why we are, what we are, where we are. It turns out that when one looks at humanity's expansion around the world, and in the biological explanations for our geographic diversity, we humans are often just another primate. Humanity's distribution around the world and the type of organism we are today has been shaped by the same biogeographical forces that shape other species.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Evolution, History, Geography, Biology

368 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 2015

Reviews

[Cheryl]

My mother recommended this survey of "human biogeography." She is not an academic, but has been an avid reader and a curious person for over seven decades.

I wasn't sure that I wanted to read it, as I have read some other bits of 'human prehistory' before. But of course I want to feel closer to my mother so I determined to at least try it.
I found that it did get off to a slow start. I also found the blurb a bit misleading.
But I did finish it, and I am glad I did.

The bits I marked:
1. "In a book that celebrates diversity by trying to understand it, the concept of 'race' has no place."
2. "We are all African." This is the title of chapter 2, which outlines so many details of so many stages of migration I just couldn't master it, and finally just 'read' it w/out absorbing it, and moved on to the next chapter. But again, the point is that there is no "African race" or anything like it.
3. "We landed on New Zealand... just seven hundred years ago."
4. "The philosopher of science David Lee Hull... reports Thomas (Henry) Huxley's contention that scientists should be strangled when they reach sixty years of age so they do not hinder the progress of science."
5. "In the same paper that produced "Eve," Rebecca Cann and her co-authors also showed that the peoples of Africa are more genetically variable than are the people of any other region.
6. "None of us lack African genes, but plenty of us lack Australian, Asian, or American genes."
7. "[T]he distribution of gene types in Europe looks like a map of European countries. With different gene types in different colors, and no country borders drawn, there is Portugal to the left of Spain... and so on."
8. The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War by Graham Robb lists all these words for "yes" in the major dialects of the country (please forgive lack of diacritical marks): O, Oc, Si, Bai, Ya, Win, Oui, Oyi, Awe, Jo, Ja, Oua.
9. "In sum, the extraordinary biodiversity of the tropics is matched by the extraordinary cultural diversity." That's from a section that enhanced both my understanding of the whole "rainforest as treasure-house" concept and clarified that humans are really animals.

Note: these are just the bits that interested me enough to report here. In no way are they to be considered any sort of 'executive summary' or even fair sample of Harcourt's book as a whole.

Includes index, notes, sources, illustrations, and photos.

In case you're interested, my favorite science books include Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? and Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals. PM me or follow my reviews for many more.

[Jenny Mizutowicz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I anxiously awaited the release of this book as I am fascinated with evolution and anthropology. I thought it was well-researched and provided a detailed, mostly unbiased explanation of how we became what we are today. I learned a lot from this book and accumulated a bag full of "did ya knows?" to add to conversation. The most interesting chapter for me was "Variety is the Spice of Life", which offers theories on why we look different depending on where our ancestors came from. However, the book read too much like a textbook for me to become fully immersed in it. I found it monotonous at times and was bored by the excessive qualifiers and exceptions.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Camels in Asia are different than camels in northern Africa. So, why do some people have a problem with the idea that humans from the Arctic are different than humans from Tonga? The author is a "bio-geographer" (did you know there was such a thing?) and he's concerned that real issues, such as medical differences, between people of different races are ignored in service of avoiding racism.
He explains some of the biological differences in different races and nationalities. (People in Africa, for example, have evolved strategies for avoiding malaria which their descendants who have lived in America for generations have lost.) He also discusses the latest ideas on how and when humanity spread throughout the world.

[Kimberly · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can't slog my way any further in this book. While the author makes some interesting points, those are too few and far between to keep my interest when I could be reading something MUCH more fun.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was excited to read this, because the tag line is absolutely intriguing, and while there are fantastic nuggets of information in here, for me, it was kind of a slog. I am a reader without an anthropological background and there was a lot of just infodumping of places and timelines and names that I could not keep up with. The structure only made it more inaccessible; the chapters are incredibly long, without natural breaking points or organization, and the kind of rambling way the information was presented and referenced made it hard to find a place to pause to take in what I'd just read. It more or less feels like a transcript of a lecture, rather than an attempt to engage a broader target audience.

Those gripes aside, there is a lot of genuinely interesting information in this book that I will come back to and reference in the future, and it's prompted me to think about people and the world in a way I hadn't before. I just wish it was presented in a more thoughtful, concise manner.

[Jeannette · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can be more fascinating about humans than the way we got to where we are? Yes, to talk about that subject means following our evolutionary paths, our genetics, behavior, and a great deal of piecing together a history of crossing landscapes. Harcourt tries his best to take us along these several paths across time and space. The book has has a huge scope and much is crammed into its pages. There is no current challenger in the field of biogeography and I hope Harcourt writes an update. And in the new book I hope he will put A LOT more graphics. A few photos didnt satisfy me and what is biogeography without landscapes? Landscapes require MAPS. I wanted more maps, lots more maps. Next time? Meanwhile, a good update on how humans spread around the world, diversity and more.

[Ann Dulhanty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great update on the status of human and other hominid genome sequencing, as well as a fascinating history of how we have interacted with our environment, shaping it as it shapes us. An enjoyable read. It's a difficult task to take on, explaining several fields of science simultaneously in a conversational tone, but this book achieves it. As a scientist, I thought the narrative screamed for charts and maps, but that might not be for everyone. The book ventures into a challenging area - explaining the history of Homo sapiens and some of the ways we differ from each other. Overall, very informative. A great work of accessible science.

[Wilma · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was interesting but very slow reading as it is a dense compendium of biology and anthropology and how the human race diversified over the millennia. The author obviously did a huge amount of research for this book.
One of the things that slowed me down was the many sections on the differences of opinion among other scientists about how we developed and ranged around the world.
All in all he gave a very even account of how we got to be who we are and where we are...his words.

[YHC · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have also read few similar books of this subjects, but this one gave us a more possible ideas about humankind moving away from Africa due to climate changes, we are not sure if we are the 100% cause of many big sizes animals to go extincted, because there are not only just 1 time climate changes, but certain big animals lived through them. Our moving with the getting warm/getting cold of climate also made us move our agriculture with us, means we need to destroy local environment from forest to farmlands. Direct eating them as food or indirectly decreased their numbers due to destroying their habitation could both accelerate the extinction.

第13章 后记

人类还能坚持下去吗？

在这本书中，我努力展示了我们在全球的分布，以及我们人类这种生物，是怎样被同样塑造了其他物种的生物地理外力塑造而成的。我们不是按照我们自己的形象被创造出来的。我们并不是特别的造物。

跟其他动物物种一样，我们人类由同一个地理起源向外扩张。像其他动物物种一样，一些人类个体因为拥有某些基因型而能在环境中更好地存活，并在那些环境中比拥有其他基因型的个体留下更多后代，因此，不同地区的人类在解剖学和生理学方面都有所不同。和其他动物物种一样，气候影响着人类能在哪里生存，地理障碍则影响了人类可以去向何方。直到今天，地理障碍仍在将人们分离开来。同低纬度地区相比，高纬度地区动物（和植物）的多样性更小，岛屿上（特别是小岛上）的多样性也比陆地上小。因此我们也可以看到，人类文化多样性在高纬度地区和岛屿上也同样会更小。其他动物物种在世界上不同地区有着不同的饮食，对那些食物有着不同的适应力，人类也一样。我们人类像其他动物物种一样，在我们自己内部，也与其他物种发生竞争或合作，由此我们一方面迫使其他一些物种和文化走向灭绝，另一方面也在帮助某些物种和文化扩张它们的范围。

我们关于生物地理学和进化的知识揭示出，最终，所有物种都会走向灭绝。不过在目前，从我们的人口规模和全球性分布的程度判断，我们人类还很兴旺。我出生于1950年，当时全球人口有25亿。过了60年多一点，也就是在2011年10月到2012年3月之间的某个时刻，我们的人口达到了70亿。根据一些预测，再过一个60年，我们的人口就会增加到100亿。到时候，我们甚至可能将我们的地理分布范围延伸到月球和火星上。

但是，我们还能繁荣多久呢？在远古时代，旧世界人族祖先的进化谱系上，曾有三四个甚至是五个分支同时存活，而人类这一物种是唯一存活下来的一支。我们的近亲人族中曾有超过15支是先于我们行走在地球上的。现在他们都已灭绝。我们知道其中的14支存活了多久。某一人族物种存活了多久这种事能告诉我们什么？我们人类还能走多远？

我们祖先的亲戚中的一支——直立人存在了150万年。其他分支的生存时间则从100多万年到仅仅30万年不等。我们的祖先种平均生存了60万年。要达到类人物种存在的平均值，达到人族物种的平均水平，人类还需要再坚持40万年，那是我们迄今为止存在时间的两倍。

对于我们是否可以在未来继续生存40万年，我并不抱乐观态度。特别是当我注意到，我们这一物种现在每年消耗的资源，都要多于地球当年的产出，这意味着我们正在消耗我们的老本。冰川和冰盖正在以前所未有的速率消融。然而，我们还是如此鼠目寸光，如此一厢情愿地视而不见，如此无休无止，贪得无厌。这也包括我本人。我以奢侈的西方方式生活，消耗的资源远多于我对地球的回馈。在西方几乎每个人都是这样。但是，我们中会有任何一个人像第三世界中的大多数人那样，采取更具可持续性的生活方式吗？答案几乎肯定是——不会。

数千年的物竞天择适者生存，使我们每一个人都渴望资源，因为资源是过往生存所必需的。资源使我们能够生存、繁殖，并在这个资源常常���缺的世界中不断流动。现在，我们处在一个技术允许我们进行大规模开发的世界中，同样的贪婪使我们变肥变胖，使我们变得凶险致命——既对我们自己，也对整个世界。

但是，我们利己的大脑同样也是善于合作的大脑，就像我做博士生时的导师罗伯特·欣德（Robert Hinde）一直强调的那样。我们通过合作来竞争，不比通过打斗来竞争少。现在生活在非洲中东部维龙加火山群的山地大猩猩的数量，已经两倍于我20世纪70年代开始研究它们时的数量。我们在黄石国家公园放生了狼群。我小时候在英国几乎没有见过猛禽，而现在这里已经能常常见到红隼、鸢、秃鹫了，甚至在人口密集、农业发达的英格兰南部也是如此。如果我们能够维持并扩张其他物种的地理范围，那么我们人类这个物种可能也就有了希望。

目录 · · · · · ·
第1章 序言
我们去向哪里？为什么？
第2章 我们都是非洲人
人类的出生地
第3章 从这里到那里，从那里到这里
顺着沿海路线走出非洲，再遍布世界？
第4章 我们是如何获得确切知识的？
“事实”背后的科学
第5章 多样性让生活更美好
我们之所以如此，是因为我们生活在这里
第6章 基因地图与少有人走的路
流动障碍保存了多样性
第7章 人不过是一种猴子？
人类文化多样性与生物多样性的全球分布一样，原因也相同
第8章 岛屿是独特的
小环境中物种的体型大小和新陈代谢
第9章 食物塑造了我们
我们的饮食影响我们的基因，不同地区的人吃不同的食物
第10章 没能杀死我们的，要么让我们止步，要么叫我们改道
其他物种对我们居住地的影响
第11章 疯狂、邪恶、危险
我们固然挽救了一些物种，但我们伤害的物种更多
第12章 征服与合作
人类偶尔会互相帮助，但彼此间通常很不客气
第13章 后记
人类还能坚持下去吗？

[Sam Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfullly intriguing and enlightening comprehensive picture about how and why our species' phenotypes diverge from each other due to biogeographical evolutionary pressures.
p.39 "We humans are all so obviously and so recently of African origin regardless of our skin color, we almost all so obviously originated somewhere other than where we are now, and we are almost all of us such a mixture of peoples from different regions that to define any one of us as being of a particular race is, scientifically, an utterly empty statement -unless we are all defined as Africans."

[J.R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating examination of how we (humankind) became who/what we are.
Harcourt, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of California, Davis, traces the journey of the human species out of Africa and describes the biological and geographical forces which have shaped the beast into what it is today in all its glorious variety.
In the process he never shirks from noting differences of opinion or separating theory from established fact. His explanations of how environment, biology and even culture have shaped the differences between members of the same species across the world are lucid and backed by the latest scientific thought. Evolution is an ongoing process and more changes lie ahead.
In an epilogue, while ending on an optimistic note, Harcourt warns we are not eternal. We are the surviving branch of a much larger tree of ancestors gone extinct. "Now in a world in which our technology allows exploitation on a massive scale," he writes, "that same greed makes us fat, and it makes us lethal--to ourselves as well as to the world."

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

UC Davis professor Harcourt examines how humanity's interaction with the environment helps explain the biological and cultural differences between human populations. He discusses a number of fascinating topics, and, as this book was published this year in 2015, gives us the latest research and theories.

[Haven · Rating 1 out of 5]

Listen. It’s a really interesting subject but I have been reading this book for literal years and it is a PAIN. Confusing and poorly written IMO.