The Ape in the Tree

Alan Walker, Pat Shipman

368 pages, parution le 26/04/2005

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Résumé

This book offers a unique insider's perspective on the unfolding discovery of a crucial link in our evolution: Proconsul, a fossil ape named whimsically after a performing chimpanzee called Consul.

The Ape in the Tree is written in the voice of Alan Walker, whose involvement with Proconsul began when his graduate supervisor analyzed the tree-climbing adaptations in the arm and hand of this extinct creature. Today, Proconsul is the best-known fossil ape in the world.

The history of ideas is set against the vivid adventures of Walker's fossil-hunting expeditions in remote regions of Africa, where the team met with violent thunderstorms, dangerous wildlife, and people isolated from the Western world. Analysis of the thousands of new Proconsul specimens they recovered provides revealing glimpses of the life of this last common ancestor between apes and humans.

The attributes of Proconsul/ have profound implications for the very definition of humanness. This book speaks not only of an ape in a tree but also of the ape in our tree.

Sommaire

Luck and Unluck
Love and the Tree
An Arm and a Leg
The Lost and the Found
Back to the Miocene
An Embarrassment of Riches
How Did It Move?
How Many Proconsuls?
How Many Apes?
Something to Chew On
More on Teeth
Listening to the Past

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Caractéristiques techniques

	PAPIER
Éditeur(s)	The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Auteur(s)	Alan Walker, Pat Shipman
Parution	26/04/2005
Nb. de pages	368
Format	14,5 x 21,5
Couverture	Relié
Poids	485g
Intérieur	Noir et Blanc
EAN13	9780674016750
ISBN13	978-0-674-01675-0