Review: The humans who were and who might have been

Review of: Walking with Cavemen: Eye-to-Eye with Your Ancestors

Authors: John Lynch and Louise Barrett

Publisher: DK Publishing, Inc.

Source: Dallas Public Library

Grade: B

Once there were myriad branches on the evolutionary tree of humans. So how did those wildly fruitful beginnings become whittled down to a single sprout – the one we modern humans call Homo sapiens? In Walking with Cavemen, the book spin-off of a popular BBC television series, BBC Science Unit head John Lynch and biological anthropologist Louise Barrett introduce readers to several of those early human species and even more species who might have had a shot at human status if only the evolutionary breaks hadn’t gone against them.

Lynch and Barrett divide Walking with Cavemen (few of whose subjects actually lived in caves) into four parts – First Ancestors (3.5 million years ago); Blood Brothers (2.0 million year ago); Savage Family (1.5 million years ago); and The Survivors (250,000 years ago). Following in the footsteps of the TV series, the authors narrate scenarios to draw readers into the worlds of these early beings. 

 

The First Ancestors section deals with the earliest known (as of the publication date) hominids to branch off from the last common ancestor whose progeny became both human and apes. These include not only the well-known such as Australopithecus afarensis (including the iconic “Lucy” fossil) and but lesser-known Australopithecus species and others.

Blood Brothers deals with an explosive evolution of hominid species, including the appearance of the first to carry the genus designation Homo, a species termed “habilis” – “handy man” – whose combination of “dexterity and inventiveness” gave rise to the production of tools specialized for particular purposes. In Savage Family, we are introduced to perhaps the first group of we would recognize as human if they time-traveled to a 21^st century metropolis.

Walking with Cavemen is lavishly illustrated with still from the TV series. And though the costumes and masks are impressive, the modern human reenactors have not been able to disguise their essentially modern body dimensions, including our long, slender, decidedly unape-like legs. As a result, in the First Ancestors and Blood Brothers sections, the photos look like extras from a Planet of the Apes movie.

Not until the section labeled Savage Family do modern human proportions emerge (along with hairless skin, a possible adaption to enhance sweating, and therefore cooling of the expanding hominid brain). Finally, in The Survivors, Walking with Cavemen turns its attention to those beings who truly did live in caves, the now-extinct Neanderthals and Homo sapiens -- us – the last branch left on humanity’s tree of life.

Some elements of the narratives are, admittedly, speculative. Thoughts and emotions, Lynch and Barrett note, do not fossilize. But they back their imaginings with enough hard-scientific data – bones, stone tools and other artifacts, even fossilized footprints – to ground the narratives.

In addition to the species narratives, Lynch and Barrett include engaging sidebars – discussions of related subjects – from how fossilization occurs, to theories about the emergence of language, to the hoax of the English “fossils” designated Piltdown Man (and whose much-vaunted “discovery” was a major setback to acceptance of humanity’s African origins). 

All of which leaves open the question: at just which point did humans become, well, human? Was it when protohumans began living in social groups? When they (almost we) became technological beings, able to make and harness fire, to shape stone tools? When they became eaters of meat (both scavenged and hunted) that gave their brains the extra energy boost needed to enlarge? Possibly when, much later, they developed the rituals, including those surrounding death, that presaged a leap into abstract thought?

And given the plethora of might-have-beens, readers are left to ponder what the world would be like if those who left lighter footprints had been the survivors instead.