Fossil Men: The Quest for the Oldest Skeleton and the Origins of Humankind

Riveting. ... Pattison's uncanny ability [is] to write evocatively about science. ... In this, he is every bit as good as the best scientist writers. --New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) Brilliant. ... A work of staggering depth. --Minneapolis Star TribuneA decade in the making, Fossil Men is a scientific detective story played out in anatomy and the natural history of the human body: the first full-length account of the discovery of a startlingly unpredicted human ancestor more than a million years older than LucyIt is the ultimate mystery: where do we come from? In 1994, a team led by fossil-hunting legend Tim White uncovered a set of ancient bones in Ethiopia's Afar region. Radiometric dating of nearby rocks indicated the resulting skeleton, classified as Ardipithecus ramidus--nicknamed "Ardi"--was an astounding 4.4 million years old, more than a million years older than the world-famous "Lucy." The team spent the next 15 years studying the bones in strict secrecy, all whi