Donald C. Johanson

“A glorious success…The science manages to be as exciting and spellbinding as the juiciest gossip” (San Franscisco Chronicle) in the story of the discovery of “Lucy”—the oldest, best-preserved skeleton of any erect-walking human ancestor ever found.
When Donald Johanson found a partical skeleton, approximately 3.5 million years old, in a remote region of Ethiopia in 1974, a headline-making controversy was launched that continues on today. Bursting with all the suspense and intrigue of a fast paced adventure novel, here is Johanson’s lively account of the extraordinary discovery of “Lucy.” By expounding the controversial change Lucy makes in our view of human origins, Johanson provides a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of the history of pealeoanthropology and the colorful, eccentric characters who were and are a part of it. Never before have the mystery and intricacy of our origins been so clearly and compellingly explained as in this astonighing and dramatic book.… (mais)

I didn't finish this, but I'd still like to make some comments. Donald C. Johanson published a number of popular books on Lucy, also called Dinkinesh, or AL 288-1, Homo afariensis, and human evolution.

1981 Lucy the Beginnings of Humankind,
1986 Lucy's Child,
1990 Journey from Dawn,
1994 Ancestors, in Search of Human Origins,
1996 From Lucy to Language,
2009 Lucy's Legacy

So why is he telling us about his problems with cockroaches, mosquitos and booking hotels in the 1980s, fifteen to twenty years ago in 2009? Did someone manage to restrain him from putting all this in his previous books? He must keep very detailed diaries. This is a matter of personal preference. Another Amazon reader and I a different book indifferent reviews because we got very tired of the author's tangents and details of her life. It was her detailing a perfectly banal cup of coffee that she bought in South America that sticks in my mind. That and a lengthy account of an intense argument with her hosts about the meaning of pictographs that were not among the illustrations in the book. My but they were patient people.

Another reviewer scolded us because it is precisely these things that make the book interesting (to him.) I hate people who try to tell me that I don't know what I am thinking and feeling. That's part of gaslighting. Despite what the third reviewer thought, there is not arguing taste. But for the reader with a mind for detail, this may all be fascinating. I know someone who loves what I consider to be excruciating detail. I never read books that she recommends.

These were intermixed with very interesting sections on the science of evolution. Perhaps if I had not been somewhat pressed for time, I would have been more willing to wade through the personal minutia and flip around until I found the more interesting parts. Things change of course, no information becomes available, which makes revisiting the evidence worthwhile.

So, I hope this helps the reader decide about the book.… (mais)