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The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE is
the first in the Oxford New World History series intended to present a
chronological history of humanity in short volumes. With
lucid and insightful prose, Tatersall presents the story of human evolution
in 143 pages divided into seven chapters. The first summarizes the
history of our understanding of evolutionary processes. Central to this
chapter is how in recent decades the concept of a slow process of gradual
change, the so-called "evolutionary synthesis," has given way to an
appreciation of just how speciation can take place in short bursts followed
by long periods of relatively little change. Another key point the
author makes is that the idea of a single linear progressive evolution of
humans has been replaced by "a dynamic saga in which multiple hominid species
have originated, done battle in the ecological arena, and, more often than
not, gone extinct" (p. 17).
A second chapter provides an excellent discussion of how
researchers have learned to date and analyze fossils introducing concepts such
as potassium/argon technique, electron spin resonance and
paleomagnetism. The next chapter explains how the search for human
origins has shifted from an emphasis on the development of big brains to
bipedalism, and how our earliest ancestors have been located further back in
time. This is followed by a discussion of the emergence of our genus
Homo and its tool-making capacities. The fifth chapter focuses
primarily on Homo heidelbegensis and Homo neanderthalensis,
both relatively recent and brainy hominids, the former being the most likely
candidate for the immediate predecessor of our own species. Then,
in perhaps the most interesting part of the book, Tatersall provides an
elegant and sophisticated account of the emergence of behaviorally modern humans.
The author seems to support the neurological-change thesis to explain the
radical departure in technology and behavior that appeared around 75,000
years ago. Perhaps unconsciously following in the long tradition of
assigning a special place for ourselves in creation, he emphasizes the
uniqueness of the modern sapient mind. That uniqueness, he explains, is
found in the enormous gap between the symbolic cognitive capacity of modern
humans and the non-symbolic cognitive states of our immediate predecessors
including the hominids that coexisted with modern humans until relatively
recently.
The last chapter surveys the Neolithic period to the eve
of urban, literate society in fifteen and a half pages. While a good
summary, it has a hurried quality in contrast to the elegantly presented
analyses that characterizes the earlier chapters; it will no doubt strike
most teachers who use it as inadequate for covering the extraordinary
important changes that took place during this time. It might have been
better to devote separate volume to his period. There is a short but
useful list of select readings at the end of the volume that contains a
number of highly readable books by leading scholars and science
writers.
The World from the Beginnings to 4,000 BCE is
an excellent introduction to a part of history that most historians skip over
due to its remoteness in time, the complexity and the changing nature of the
evidence, and the difficulty of the science it takes to understand
it. No doubt, new discoveries and further innovations in research
methods will necessitate substantial revisions of the topics it covers before
too long, but the book will still be useful as an extremely well presented
and at times engaging, history of the exploration of our evolutionary
origins.
Michael Seth is an associate
professor of history at James Madison University. He can be
contacted at sethmj@jmu.edu |
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