Humans Before Humanity (Hardcover)

Humans Before Humanity recreates the lost world of the hominid species that lived and flourished for around one million years before, and in some cases after, the evolution of modern humans some 200,000 years ago. It also investigates how, when, where and why the modern human species appeared and eventually became dominant. These subjects of a much heated controversy are of considerable interest to anthropologists, biologists, archaeologists and numerous others.

Making use of a wide range of evidence, the book considers issues in evolutionary archaeology, such as the extent to which the early australopithecines, parathropines, Homo erectus, and the Neanderthals can be seen as populations on the way to being human, or as distinct, unique species. These issues lead not only towards a rational account of modern human origins, but towards an explanation of the origins and evolutionary role of cognition, communication and language -- of the knowledge that gives our species its name.