The First Human人类祖先

In this dynamic account, award-winning science writer Ann Gibbons chronicles an extraordinary quest to answer the most primal of questions: When and where was the dawn of humankind?
Following four intensely competitive international teams of scientists in a heated race to find the “missing link”–the fossil of the earliest human ancestor–Gibbons ventures to Africa, where she encounters a fascinating array of fossil hunters: Tim White, the irreverent Californian who discovered the partial skeleton of a primate that lived 4.4 million years ago in Ethiopia; French paleontologist Michel Brunet, who uncovers a skull in Chad that could date the beginnings of humankind to seven million years ago; and two other groups–one led by zoologist Meave Leakey, the other by British geologist Martin Pickford and his French paleontologist partner, Brigitte Senut–who enter the race with landmark discoveries of their own. Through scrupulous research and vivid first-person reporting, The First Human reveals the perils and the promises of fossil hunting on a grand competitive scale.

　　Ann Gibbons, the primary writer on human evolution for Science magazine for more than a decade, has taught science writing at Carnegie Mellon University. She has been a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Science Journalism Fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. www.anngibbons.com

Map: The Cradle of Humanity
"First Human " Fossil Finds by Fear
Time Line: The Human Family
The Fossil Hunters
Introduction
PART ONE ANCIENT FOOTSTEPS
CHAPTER C)NE / African Trailblazers
CHAPTER TWO/ Continental Divide
CHAPTER THREE / The Early Ancestor
CHAPTER FOUR / Drawing Bloodlines
CHAPTER FIVE / Lucy, the Late Ancestor
CHAPTER SIX / Defining Humans
CHAPTER SEVEN / Banishment
PART TWfl
CHAPTER TEN / The Root Ape
CHAPTER ELEVEN / West Side Story
CHAPTER TWELVE / Turf Wars
CHAPTER THmTEEN / Toeing the Line
CHAPTER FOURTEEN / Millennium Man
CHAPTER FIFTEEN / Touma
PART THREE WISDOM OF THE BONES
CHAPTER SIXTEEN / Bones of Contention
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN / Habitat for Humanity
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
lndex