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I remember Bernard Wood as one of the best professors I have ever had.

Are you really going to spend 1/2 your time discussing taxonomies and process? You've got 150 pages and a couple hours of my complete attention. My real feeling is these books should be viewed as the ONCE chance each author has to sell their area of expertise, their specialty, their subject, to an amatuer or generalist, or introductory audience. Afarensis and more time discussing how they get put into their boxes. Wood's choice of what to focus on in this book (and thus what he ignores) means less time spent exploring the difference between H. I really wish Wood had spent more of the brief time authors are given in the VSI format describing WHAT we know rather than the process and taxonomy.

Vol N° 142 of Oxford's Very Short Introductins series, Human Evolution is focused, by design on explaining how paleoanthropologists do their job, explaining (briefly) what we THINK we know about human evolutionary history, and where the gaps in our knowledge are. ".when all is said and done, all taxonomies are hypotheses."

Traces the history of paleoanthropology from its beginnings in the eighteenth century to the very latest fossil finds.Įxplores how Ancient DNA studies have revolutionized how we view the recent (post-550 ka) human evolution.ĭiscusses discoveries of new taxa, as well as the suggestion from ancient DNA studies of 'ghost' taxa whose fossil records still remains to be discovered.Įxplains how fossils are found, and analysed, and why they are interpreted in different waysĮxplains the functions of geochronology and paleoclimatology. He is a British geologist, and Research Professor, at Oxford University. Human Evolution a very short introduction by Bernard John (Bernie) Wood. Human Evolution a very short introduction (Very Short Introductions #142), Bernard Wood