Overview

This first-person narrative about an archaeological discovery is rewriting the story of human evolution. A story of defiance and determination by a controversial scientist, this is Lee Berger's own take on finding Homo naledi, an all-new species on the human family tree and one of the greatest discoveries of the twenty-first century. In 2013, Lee Berger, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, caught wind of a cache of bones in a hard-to-reach underground cave in South Africa. He put out a call around the world for petite collaborators-men and women small and adventurous enough to be able to squeeze through eight-inch tunnels to reach a sunless cave forty feet underground. With this team of underground astronauts, Berger made the discovery of a lifetime: hundreds of prehistoric bones, including entire skeletons of at least fifteen individuals, all perhaps two million years old. Their features combined those of known prehominids like Lucy, the famous Australopithecus, with those more human than anything ever before seen in prehistoric remains. Berger's team had discovered an all new species, and they called it Homo naledi. The cave quickly proved to be the richest prehominid site ever discovered, full of implications that shake the very foundation of how we define what makes us human. Did this species come before, during, or after the emergence of Homo sapiens on our evolutionary tree? How did the cave come to contain nothing but the remains of these individuals? Did they bury their dead? If so, they must have had a level of self-knowledge, including an awareness of death. And yet those are the very characteristics used to define what makes us human. Did an equally advanced species inhabit Earth with us, or before us? Berger does not hesitate to address all these questions. Berger is a charming and controversial figure, and some colleagues question his interpretation of this and other finds. But in these pages, this charismatic and visionary paleontologist counters their arguments and tells his personal story: a rich and readable narrative about science, exploration, and what it means to be human.

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9781982605575

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Reviews

In short chapters...Berger relates how he used Google Earth as a geological aid to scour the South Africa and uncover natural chambers and new fossil sites...[along with] human-interest anecdotes and asides on the history of paleoanthropology...Berger's finds are certainly interesting, and the H. naledi discovery is potentially groundbreaking. -- Publishers Weekly

"In short chapters...Berger relates how he used Google Earth as a geological aid to scour the South Africa and uncover natural chambers and new fossil sites...[along with] human-interest anecdotes and asides on the history of paleoanthropology...Berger's finds are certainly interesting, and the H. naledi discovery is potentially groundbreaking. -- ""Publishers Weekly"""

Author Information

Lee Berger is a paleoanthropologist and National Geographic explorer-in-residence. He is best known for his discovery of early human ancestors, including Australopithecus sediba in 2008 and Homo naledi in 2013. Berger is an award-winning author, speaker, and research professor at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg John Hawks is a paleoanthropologist who has been working alongside Lee Berger on the Rising Star Expedition. He is the Vilas-Borghesi Distinguished Achievement Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Donald Corren is a stage, television, and voice actor whose work has been featured on and off Broadway, in regional theaters, behind animated characters, and on television for the past three decades. Trained in the theater division at Juilliard, he is also a writer whose credits include the original Martha Stewart Living television series and the medals ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.

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