The Wisdom of the Bones : In Search of Human Origins

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Summary: Excellent science writing
Review: Alan Walker's and Pat Shipman's entertaining The Wisdom of the Bones: In Search of Human Origins, admirably accomplishes the writers' two objectives. First, Walker and Shipman describe Walker's own 1984 finding in Kenya of "Nariokotome boy", a nearly complete Homo erectus skeleton, and how that skeleton fit into the history of human paleontology from the 19th century through the "Piltdown Man" hoax and to the present. Second, this book explains how scientists are able to tease out from the slimmest of evidence great detail about their finds. For example, determining the boy's age, diet, and other particulars. This book should appeal both to the general reader and those interested in both the discoveries and marvels of science.

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Summary: Very creative ideas and easy to digest for novice
Review: Although this is obviously a book grounded in science, it's important to note that this isn't chemistry or quantum physics, where if you don't have specialized knowledge it will be a waste of your time. The authors here do a great job of presenting their findings and then explaining how and why they made the assumptions they did based on those findings. Anybody can follow their logic and come to their own conclusions based on the evidence. It is also very well written and even the story of the researchers travelling to Africa is quite interesting.

I saw another reviewer bashing the authors for making wild conclusions based on minimal evidence. But that is the creative genius of these people. They're not making wild conclusions, but rather the most logical findings they can working with tiny pieces of bone millions of years old. For instance, at one point the authors discuss finding evidence of a specific type of disease in a pre homo-sapiens fossil. We know that the person (or hominid!) would have been partially crippled for some extended period of time, and certainly unable to gather food and defend against predators. Much like reading tree rings, the next layers of bone show that the infection or disease healed, and the being likely recovered and went on with life. The fact of the recovery leads to the author's conclusion that at this point in pre-history, the (person) had someone else as a caregiver, helping gather water and food and offering shelter, etc. This is important and offers glimpses into the mental and emotional development at that point in time. It seems a rather simple idea, but it's just one of numbers of brilliant ideas the authors proffer that don't seem like wild conclusions at all.

The entire book is fascinating and quite honestly makes me wish I could go back in time and change professions.

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Summary: An interesting take on Human Evolutions
Review: Aside from being a fantastic professor and wonderful conversationalist Alan Walkier is a great writer. He and his wife Pat Shipman have taken many literary ventures together; this one being their best.

The challenge in popular scientific books is to make potentially dense material easy to read so that the reader doesn't feel burdened by the material he or she reads. Walker and Shipman do this very well in "Wisdom of the Bones". Walker successfully integrates two stories here- one of his trip to Kenya leading up to his team's revolutionary discovery of Turkana Boy (Homo erectus/ ergaster), and the other of Turkana Boy and his bretherin.

The book doubles as a pleasurable novel and a factually saturated work-- I've found this book an invaluable resource in many classes, but i've also enjoyed the plot line. Walker keeps one engaged throughout the book-- not an easy feat in the scientific world.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: Considering that it's a scientific book, it's VERY reader friendly. Even if you're not a technical non-fiction kind of person you'll find it captivating. It's a very good intro book to the the discipline, and I've read a few. The steps used to solve the puzzle of the Nariokitome Boy were so fascinating and the information is presented so clearly that anybody interested in learning more about evolution would have no trouble getting into this book.
I took a class just recently with Milford Wolpoff at the University of Michigan, who's discussed in this book b/c of his controversial opinions. In terms of the information in this book and the information in the class, the book was up to date and very accurate.

Rating:
Summary: One of a few excellent books about human origins.
Review: This book is an example of excellent science writing. The picture of Homo Erectus ' everyday life immerges through the fascinating story of hard work done by a group of paleoanthropologists and other scientists. The book begins with the author's observation of how much different he is from a Turkana woman that he casually observes. The author then reflects back on the past investigations of the creature (Eugene Dubois, "Peking Man", etc.). The most interesting part of the book includes the description of the investigative processes that dig into the life of a creature that lived around 1.5 million years ago. I really liked the author's reasoning for the hypothesis that Homo Erectus possessed such human attributed quality as caring for the old and infirm. At the end of the book Mr. Walker returns to his original observation from another angle. This time he makes a reader feel that no matter how different other cultures in the world may be, we are still the same species, whereas Homo Erectus was a creature from a different world. It was a transitory creature of the process that made man from man-ape. This book really leaves the impression of a well thought up and very readable science writing, which will appeal to any reader interested in the origins of our species.

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Summary: Too Heavy a Burden
Review: This book reminds me that Christian Huygens "knew" that there was so much hemp growing on the planet Jupiter. How did he know?. . .Moons! That's how. Jupiter has so many moons. These would be used by lots of sailors. . .to guide their ships at night. Lots of sailors. . .lots of ships. Ships require miles of rope if they are to sail. Hence there must be a lot of hemp on Jupiter. And so it is that Walker makes so much out of so little evidence... An ancient hominid dies with a chronic bone disease and therefore must have had a lot of concerned family/companions and a massive social structure to have survived. The anterior-posterior dimension of the skeleton's cervical spinal canal is narrow, therefore the chest musculature couldn't have been sufficient to support the ability to speak (never mind that elderly humans frequently have spinal canals of 8 mm and never complain of problems speaking). It's fun to speculate about our ancestor and Walker and his team deserve great credit for finding the fine H. erectus specimen and scientifically documenting his sex, age, time of appearance on earth etc. maybe we should reserve accolades on this one until we have some more evidence....