The Wisdom of the Bones: In Search of Human Origins

Traveling to the desolate rock-strewn deserts of northen Kenya, where the temperature can hit a brutal and dry 130 degrees, would be enough of a trip, but scientist Alan Walker also takes us on a trip in time, far back in time, where we meet a boy who will help to re-write the story of our human ancestors. The mysterious boy, whose skeleton is the best specimen of Homo Erectus, the species long considered the proverbial missing link between apes and humans, lived more than a million years ago. But in the hands of scientists whose skill is only matched by their curiosity, his bones talk to us today. A highly readable account which shows how paleoanthropologists, in work both painstaking and exciting, reach conclusions about the day-to-day life of the ancestors of modern man.