Bjorn,
A good book covering the development of paleoanthropology, it's history,
as well as the fossils, is Ian Tattersall's "The Fossil Trail." He has a
pronounced "splitter" orientation, meaning he tends to see more species
in the fossil record, as opposed to a "lumper," someone who sees few
species in the record. It is pretty easy to overlook this characteristic
of Tattersall, however, and get a lot of useful information out of the
book.
(Sorry Glenn, I just saw your response to Bjorn - I think this book is
worth looking into, and I have found in my communication with numerous
anthropologists that Tattersall is still quite respected in the
Anthropological community - he is not the incompetent that Trinkhaus
tried to make him out to be, and no more biased than most other
anthropologists - anyone familiar with the discipline will realize that
we are a rather biased lot.......)
Another book that might interest you is "From Lucy to Language" by Don
Johanson (of "Lucy" fame) and Blake Edgar. It has a brief introduction
to paleoanthropology in the beginning, and is followed by some of the
most incredible photographs of the actual fossils you will ever see.
Highly recommended.
You will want something that really incorporates the fossils,
illustrating them, to really get a feel for the subject. The fossils are
what it is all about. A book full of theory without showing what they
are theorizing about is not going to be that useful. That is why I
recommend the two above for starters.
You also might want to look into a book titled, believe it or not, "The
Human Evolution Coloring Book." by Adrienne Zilhman. It is literally a
coloring book, but by no means is it something meant for children. It is
a bit dated, especially in the molecular area, but again does a
respectable job of introducing the basics of paleoanthropology
An excellent web site covering this subject, is Jim Foley's Talk Origins
hominid pages:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/index.html
Finally, If you are up to something just a bit more technical, you might
look into "Principles of Human Evolution: A Core Textbook" by Roger
Lewin. Lewin is actually a biologist, rather than an anthropologist, but
has put together a pretty well balanced treatment of all the major themes
in paleoanthropology.
As for the "spiritual" side of this issue, I also heartily recommend
Glenn's book "Adam, Apes and Anthropology" He is a bit biased..... :
) (sorry, I couldn't resist) but this book is well worth reading.
Good luck, and God Bless
Blaine McArthur
Anthropology major
California State University, Fresno
____________________________________________
"To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand."
Jose Ortega y Gasset
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Dec 06 2000 - 02:30:00 EST