Becoming Human

Taking the reader around the world, stopping in France to examine 30,000-year-old cave paintings, in Africa to see where our earliest ancestors left their bones, and in remote forests to spy on our closest relatives, the great apes, Tattersall keeps his focus on the big questions. This book is thus not only about evolution but about the meaning of our existence on this planet and our relationship to the living world. Tattersall breathes life into the human remains, searches the ancient sites for culture as well as fossils, and brings us cutting-edge research on other primates' "language", tool making, and social cooperation. What makes us really different, and what is the future of our species? Becoming Human answers these questions.