The Last Human: A Guide to Twenty-two Species of Extinct Humans

Remarkable in scope and clarity, this stunning collaboration among scientists, scholars and artists reveals the vast panorama of hominid evolution. The project began when the Fossil Hominid Reconstruction and Research Team, led by anthropologist Sawyer and paleoartist Deak, began reconstructing fossilized skulls and skeletons, using meticulous procedures of forensic anatomical reconstruction to build 3-D models of contemporary humankind's known predecessors. Paleontological and anatomical data for each species were combined with anthropological and climatological research to produce this volume, covering 22 species and seven million years. As chapters move chronologically from our most primitive antecedents, the poorly known “ape men” of the African Sahel, through better-known ancestors, such as the Australopithecines, Homo habilis and Neanderthals, the data grow in complexity and quantity; happily, fictional accounts of individual hominids draw readers into each new chapter. Illustrated with astonishingly lifelike portraits of long-gone species, this volume also includes appendixes that describe in detail how those portraits were achieved. Both inspiring and humbling, this look at humanity's ancestors—the worlds they inhabited, the challenges they faced and the legacies they left—is fascinating, informative and deeply provocative. (Feb.)