The Last Human: A Guide to Twenty-Two Species of Extinct Humans | 
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| Authors: G. J. Sawyer, Viktor Deak, Esteban Sarmiento, Richard Milner
Creators: Donald C. Johanson, Maeve Leakey, Ian Tattersall
Publisher: Yale University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $45.00
Buy New: $20.99
You Save: $24.01 (53%)
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Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 15273
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.6
Dimensions (in): 10.6 x 8.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0300100477
Dewey Decimal Number: 569.9
EAN: 9780300100471
Publication Date: June 28, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
This book tells the story of human evolution, the epic of Homo sapiens and its colorful precursors and relatives. The story begins in Africa, six to seven million years ago, and encompasses twenty known human species, of which Homo sapiens is the sole survivor. Illustrated with spectacular, three-dimensional scientific reconstructions portrayed in their natural habitat developed by a team of physical anthropologists at the American Museum of Natural History and in concert with experts from around the world, the book is both a guide to extinct human species and an astonishing hominid family photo album.
The Last Human presents a comprehensive account of each species with information on its emergence, chronology, geographic range, classification, physiology, lifestyle, habitat, environment, cultural achievements, co-existing species, and possible reasons for extinction. Also included are summaries of fossil discoveries, controversies, and publications. What emerges from the fossil story is a new understanding of Homo sapiens. No longer credible is the notion that our species is the end product of a single lineage, improved over generations by natural selection. Rather, the fossil record shows, we are a species with widely varied precursors, and our family tree is characterized by many branchings and repeated extinctions.
Exhibition information:
Photographs of most of the reconstructions that appear in this book will be featured in exhibits appearing in the new Hall of Human Origins at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The opening of the Hall is planned for November 2006.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 A Hominid Family Photo Album June 12, 2007
Ralph White (New England)
128 out of 130 found this review helpful
This book is the work of the artists and scientists of the Fossil Hominid Reconstruction and Research Team. Sawyer is the physical anthropologist, Deak is the paleoartist, and Sarmiento wrote the text. They take all that is known about each species within the genera Australopithicus, Ardipithicus, and Homo, and synthesize that data into stunning, beautiful, and somewhat disturbing likenesses of individuals. Whether in forecasting the future or in reconstructing the past, the further you get from the present day, the more uncertainty is introduced. The authors admit to a blending of science and art, and they admit that the more flimsy the fossil record, the greater their artistic license. It is said that all of the known fossils of proto-humans would fit in the bed of a pickup truck, and it is with this implicit caveat in mind that you must evaluate the accuracy of the reconstructions. Also, only bone fossilizes, and this is a book about soft tissue, so there is considerable inductive logic implicit in the reconstructions. The result is simply phenomenal, and we all owe a great deal to Sawyer, Deak, and Sarmiento for their scholarship and their inspiration. My guess is that any future corrections to their work will likely appear immaterial to the scientifically literate general reader which is their target audience.
The paleoanthropological discoveries in the text of this elegant photo album of proto-humans have been published before; the reason you will want to read this book is to meet your family in the flesh, to see what your ancestors looked like. Take each reconstruction as a hypothesis; this is what they most likely looked like, based on our current interpretation of the fossil record.
This book's stunning illustrations will be certain to attract a fresh audience of paleoanthropological novices, and they will find, after their initial shock, that the authors present a rather comprehensive introductory course in the topic. It is a welcome addition to a bibliography of recent books aimed at the general reader, including "The Dawn of Human Culture", by Richard Klein, "From Lucy to Language," by Donald Johansen, "Extinct Humans," by Ian Tattersall and Jeffrey Schwartz, and "Becoming Human," by Ian Tattersal (see my Amazon reviews). This book doesn't require a vocabulary in craniodental morphology, and for the most part Sarmiento's text employs terms in common usage, in preference to scientific terms less familiar to the general reader.
What emerges from these pages is the slow, but accelerating evolution of proto-humans, by a process of brutal natural selection, including many failed "branches" in the evolutionary tree, all but one ultimately leading to extinction, leaving only ourselves.
The Ultimate Extended Family Photo Album July 3, 2007
Carl Flygare (San Jose, CA USA)
62 out of 65 found this review helpful
"The Last Human: A Guide to Twenty-Two Species of Extinct Humans" is a numinous, scientifically accurate, and artistically inspired depiction of human evolution - the ultimate extended family photo album and history - that follows the emergence of 22 human species from our primordial cradle in Africa six to seven million years ago to the dawn of Homo sapiens.
Unlike overly popularized accounts, "The Last Human" unflinchingly notes that Homo sapiens was not an inevitable outcome. Environment and contingency generated, and the fossil record documents, a hominid family tree sprouting many branches including forerunners, relatives, and extinctions. Photorealistic three-dimensional reconstructions portray hominids such as Australopithecus afarensis, Homo rhodesiensis, Homo erectus, and Homo neanderthalensis (among others) with startling and emotionally evocative intensity.
The accompanying text provides a comprehensive account of each species with information on its emergence, chronology, geographic range, classification, physiology, lifestyle, habitat, environment, cultural achievements, co-existing species, and possible reasons for extinction.
By masterfully merging scientific insight and artistic interpretation into a coherent and compelling whole "The Last Human" eloquently articulates how family history is everyone's heritage. This is a category-defining book that deserves to be widely read. It has my highest recommendation.
Also try Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade, The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors by Ann Gibbons, From Lucy to Language: Revised, Updated, and Expanded by Donald Johansen, or the Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins by Carl Zimmer.
Beautiful Pictorial Guide To Human Evolution For Those Who Aren't Scientists July 5, 2007
John Kwok (New York, NY USA)
41 out of 43 found this review helpful
"The Last Human: A Guide to Twenty-Two Species of Extinct Humans" is a beautiful, illustrated guide to human evolution that's aimed for a scientifically literate general audience, without much of the terminology associated with paleoanthropology and other relevant aspects of physical anthropology. The principal authors, physical anthropologist Gary P. Sawyer and artist Viktor Deak, are the co-leaders of the Fossil Hominid Reconstruction and Research Team based at the American Museum of Natural History's Department of Anthropology, which has used the techniques of forensic anthropology to recreate these vivid illustrations of these extinct hominid species, often relying on the latest paleoanthropologic research (though, in a couple of instances, the authors observe that some artistic license was taken with the final appearance of several individuals). This book is essentially a visual companion to the dioramas and other related displays featured in the recently opened Spitzer Hall of Human Origins at the American Museum of Natural History, in which the reconstructions made by Sawyer and Deak have taken their rigntful prominent places as among the most intriguing in this elegant hall devoted to human evolution. If nothing else, both this book and this new permanent exhibition, demonstrate more convincingly than ever, that human evolution has been an increasingly "tangled web" of species diversity, of which Homo Sapiens - humanity - is the sole surviving species. In addition to Sawyer's and Deak's contributions, there is eloquent writing too from Richard Milner, an anthropologist and writer who is affiliated with both the museum's anthropology department and Natural History Magazine. The book's text does an admirable job covering not only the paleontology of each species (e. g. geological and paleobiogeographic range, palecological reconstruction), but also delves into the probable cultural attributes of each of the twenty-two hominid species. Without question, this book is artistically - and scientifically - the latest word on human evolution aimed for a general audience; I strongly commend Yale University Press for trying to keep its production costs to a minimum to ensure a potentially large audience for it.
Brilliant and beautiful September 6, 2007
Guy P. Harrison (Earth)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
Brilliant and beautiful, this book may be helpful to those who find human evolution difficult to understand or accept.
The artwork is spectacular and succeeds at bringing long-extinct hominids back from the dead.
I highly recommend this book for both casual science fans and serious students of human evolution.
I recently gave a guest lecture on early hominids at my children's school and showed the students some of the art from this book in addition to my own replica skulls. They were blown away. The story of our origins--as described by the evidence--is fascinating and irresistible to virtually everyone who has a curious mind.
--Guy P. Harrison, author of 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God
I also recommend:
Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters
Evolution Boxed Set
Walking With Cavemen
Interpreting facial details in reconstructions January 25, 2008
Dick Marti (Georgia, USA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is a marvelous book and I will not give it fewer than 5 stars, despite my small criticism of it, which is that many of the reconstructions seem to closely resemble chimpanzees or gorillas until we get to the genus Homo when, voila!, they start to resemble people. For example, take a look at Paranthopus boisei on page 137. I don't doubt that the soft tissues were correctly placed. But what do you suppose this reconstruction would look like if the builders had gone to the other extreme and made it look more like Jack Palance instead of like a gorilla? Yes, it has a short face etc, not the extreme prognathism of a gorilla. There are two extremes in making reconstructions such as these---making them look human, or making them look like apes and P. boisei looks like something a gorilla could love. No one knows the actual state of affairs in these creatures from several million years ago. That's why these reconstructions are essentially artistic opinions (assuming the underlying meat is correctly placed). But why make most of them look so very apelike? An interesting digression on such reconstructions might be to make 3 versions, one looking deliberately apelike, one deliberately human-like, and one sort of a grand average. So what would P. boisei look like if his builders had tried to groom him so that he could ride the subway without causing phones to ring at the zoo? We will never know as long as he keeps getting dressed up like a gorilla. Maybe less facial hair is all that would be needed. And it would have been nice to see more of these reconstructions from different angles besides just the one that was provided in most instances.
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