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Lowly Origin: Where, When, and Why Our Ancestors First Stood Up

Jonathan Kingdon

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Description for Lowly Origin: Where, When, and Why Our Ancestors First Stood Up Paperback. Explains the sources and consequences of bipedalism. Following the evolution of two-legged creatures from our earliest lowly forebears, this book concludes with future options for the last surviving biped. Num Pages: 416 pages, 55 halftones. 16 line illus. 2 tables. 22 maps. BIC Classification: PSAJ; PSXE. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational; (U) Tertiary Education (US: College). Dimension: 154 x 232 x 49. Weight in Grams: 626.
Our ability to walk on two legs is not only a characteristic human trait but one of the things that made us human in the first place. Once our ancestors could walk on two legs, they began to do many of the things that apes cannot do: cross wide open spaces, manipulate complex tools, communicate with new signal systems, and light fires. Titled after the last two words of Darwin's Descent of Man and written by a leading scholar of human evolution, Lowly Origin is the first book to explain the sources and consequences of bipedalism to a broad audience. ... Read more

Product Details

Format

Paperback

Publication date

2004

Publisher

Princeton University Press United States

Number of pages

418

Condition

New

Number of Pages

416

Place of Publication

New Jersey, United States

ISBN

9780691120287

SKU

V9780691120287

Shipping Time

Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days

Ref

99-1

About Jonathan Kingdon

Jonathan Kingdon is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Biological Anthropology and Department of Zoology of Oxford University. He is the author of and artist for numerous books, including "Self-Made Man" and "Island Africa" (Princeton). The Millennium issue of "American Scientist" named Kingdon's "Atlas of Evolution in Africa" one of the "100 books that shaped a century of ... Read more

Reviews for Lowly Origin: Where, When, and Why Our Ancestors First Stood Up

"[A] remarkable new book... [I]n Kingdon we find a primate who is unafraid to give the establishment a good hard shake, and whose keen powers of observation and reasoning make him impossible to summarily dismiss... Indeed so packed with novel ideas is Lowly Origin that it presents us with a picture of human evolution quite unlike anything that has come ... Read morebefore it."
Tim Flannery, New York Review of Books "Lowly Origin is brimming with information, insight, experience and speculation about how we became human... [A] comprehensive and evocative rendition of who we are and how we fit in to the natural world."
Donald Johanson, Los Angeles Times Book Review "Elegant and thoughtful... Jonathan Kingdon commands a unique position at the interface of science and art ... Whether or not [he] manages to convince you of his larger thesis, you will be provoked along the way by the many connections he makes. And just as important, Lowly Origin is a landmark for its thoroughness in integrating the story of human evolution (which he brings up to the present day) with that of the evolving landscapes and habitats of the African continent."
Ian Tattersall, Natural History "Lowly Origin ... provides much new food for thought for lay readers and specialists alike."
Osbjorn M. Pearson, Journal of Anthropological Research "Naturalist-artist Kingdon is well known for his books on African mammals and his beautiful illustrations of them... [This] book is well written and charmingly illustrated."
Choice "Every so often ... a new concept comes into being. In Lowly Origin, Jonathan Kingdon puts forward just such a new concept... Lowly Origin is full of insights and displays the profound knowledge of African geography and ecology that is the hallmark of all Kingdon's work."
Peter Andrews, Times Literary Supplement "Jonathan Kingdon is a subtle amalgam of artist and scientist. He has a deep and up-to-date knowledge of human prehistory, and of the topology and geography of Africa, the continent where most of human prehistory happened. But he is also our leading zoological artist, and I think it must be his artist's eye that gives his writing style its vividness... Kingdon is a wonderful example of a "Third Culture" writer: a scientist who communicated his original ideas to fellow scholars in books that can be read
and enjoyed
by any educated person."
Richard Dawkins, Times Literary Supplement "Lowly Origin is an evocative book that highlights one of the key factors that makes us human
our bipedality... Kingdon's writing is lucid and his illustrations are beautiful in showcasing just how this important component of human evolution took place... A must read. A must have."
Ann Haley MacKenzie, American Biology Teacher "Jonathan Kingdon is ... singularly well equipped to cast an eye over the thorny problem of human origins... Kingdon has read widely and wisely... [He] does not claim to have found the answer to human origins. The real message of the book is the rich contextual evidence it provides. Wise students of human evolutionary history would be well advised to think carefully about that message."
Bernard Wood, Bioscience "There are people who will authoritatively disagree ... however, any subsequent account will have to parry Kingdon's version with equally explicit consideration of ... equally vivid pictures of ways of life."
Alison Jolly, London Review of Books Show Less

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Lowly Origin: Where, When, and Why Our Ancestors First Stood Up

Jonathan Kingdon

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