Volume 50, Number 14 · September 25, 2003
Europe's Apes and Us
By Tim Flannery
Lowly Origin: Where, When and Why Our Ancestors First Stood Up
by Jonathan Kingdon
Princeton University Press, 396 pp., $35.00
The Speciation of Modern Homo sapiens
edited by Tim Crow
British Academy/Oxford University Press, 265 pp., $50.00
The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey
by Spencer Wells
Princeton University Press, 224 pp., $29.95
Once upon a time (about seven to nine million years ago) the bountiful land of Tuscany was joined with Corsica and Sardinia to form an island. It was the northernmost in an archipelago that spanned the Mediterranean Sea, linking what was to become Europe with ancient Africa. The inhabitants of that long-vanished isle—Tuscinia we might call it—read like creatures from a fairy tale. Giant dormice and vegetarian bears roamed Tuscinia's hills in the company of pygmy hogs and archaic pikas, while on more southerly isles carnivorous hedgehogs the size of collies and exotic animals such as the goat-like Hoplitomeryx thrived. This last creature was distinguished in its possession of wolf-like canine teeth and five horns (including one over each eye and one in the middle of its forehead).
Review, 3703 words
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