Lewin, R. & R.A. Foley. 2005. Principles of human evolution. - Oxford, Blackwell Publishing

Abstract

What does one expect from a volume about the ‘Principles of human evolution’? The answer seems obvious: the principles, like basic ideas about evolution, genetics, geology (fossils, dating) and archaeology. Of course it must also become clear what a human being is in relation to its relatives the primates. One expects that the book will deal with important human evolutionary aspects like bipedalism, encephalization and changes of the teeth. The above-mentioned topics, like well-known species, sites and people with their ideas, are included in this voluminous work. The book is ideally built for students. It is clearly and well-written, and contains many nice figures and photographs. These can be found at the website www.blackwellpublishing.com/lewin, and are downloadable to PowerPoint files. So far so good, but what do I miss? Writing about the principles, personally I would have liked to read something about the methods used by palaeoanthropologists to study their subject. The study of metrical and non-metrical characters of bones: the basis for judging fossils. Read more...