The Wisdom of the Bones: In Search of Human Origins

The challenge in popular scientific books is to make potentially dense material easy to read so that the reader doesn't feel burdened by the material he or she reads. Walker and Shipman do this very well in "Wisdom of the Bones". Walker successfully integrates two stories here- one of his trip to Kenya leading up to his team's revolutionary discovery of Turkana Boy (Homo erectus/ ergaster), and the other of Turkana Boy and his bretherin.

The book doubles as a pleasurable novel and a factually saturated work-- I've found this book an invaluable resource in many classes, but i've also enjoyed the plot line. Walker keeps one engaged throughout the book-- not an easy feat in the scientific world.


Excellent science writing   November 16, 1998
Rick Hunter (Malone, NY United States)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

Alan Walker's and Pat Shipman's entertaining The Wisdom of the Bones: In Search of Human Origins, admirably accomplishes the writers' two objectives. First, Walker and Shipman describe Walker's own 1984 finding in Kenya of "Nariokotome boy", a nearly complete Homo erectus skeleton, and how that skeleton fit into the history of human paleontology from the 19th century through the "Piltdown Man" hoax and to the present. Second, this book explains how scientists are able to tease out from the slimmest of evidence great detail about their finds. For example, determining the boy's age, diet, and other particulars. This book should appeal both to the general reader and those interested in both the discoveries and marvels of science.


One of a few excellent books about human origins.   December 15, 2000
Yan Gluzberg (East Brunswick, New Jersey USA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

This book is an example of excellent science writing. The picture of Homo Erectus ' everyday life immerges through the fascinating story of hard work done by a group of paleoanthropologists and other scientists. The book begins with the author's observation of how much different he is from a Turkana woman that he casually observes. The author then reflects back on the past investigations of the creature (Eugene Dubois, "Peking Man", etc.). The most interesting part of the book includes the description of the investigative processes that dig into the life of a creature that lived around 1.5 million years ago. I really liked the author's reasoning for the hypothesis that Homo Erectus possessed such human attributed quality as caring for the old and infirm. At the end of the book Mr. Walker returns to his original observation from another angle. This time he makes a reader feel that no matter how different other cultures in the world may be, we are still the same species, whereas Homo Erectus was a creature from a different world. It was a transitory creature of the process that made man from man-ape. This book really leaves the impression of a well thought up and very readable science writing, which will appeal to any reader interested in the origins of our species.


Too Heavy a Burden   March 3, 2001
John H. Schmidt (South Charleston, WV USA)
4 out of 9 found this review helpful

This book reminds me that Christian Huygens "knew" that there was so much hemp growing on the planet Jupiter. How did he know?. . .Moons! That's how. Jupiter has so many moons. These would be used by lots of sailors. . .to guide their ships at night. Lots of sailors. . .lots of ships. Ships require miles of rope if they are to sail. Hence there must be a lot of hemp on Jupiter. And so it is that Walker makes so much out of so little evidence... An ancient hominid dies with a chronic bone disease and therefore must have had a lot of concerned family/companions and a massive social structure to have survived. The anterior-posterior dimension of the skeleton's cervical spinal canal is narrow, therefore the chest musculature couldn't have been sufficient to support the ability to speak (never mind that elderly humans frequently have spinal canals of 8 mm and never complain of problems speaking). It's fun to speculate about our ancestor and Walker and his team deserve great credit for finding the fine H. erectus specimen and scientifically documenting his sex, age, time of appearance on earth etc. maybe we should reserve accolades on this one until we have some more evidence....


Excelent   November 19, 1996
3 out of 4 found this review helpful

Although I'm not a specialist in this field and it is not written in my mother tongue the book took all my interest. It is absolutly faczinating. Nevertheless more technical information and less "old time" stories would be appreciated by me. I want to have more of these kind of books. Sorry for my poor English. Congrats Dr. G. Staengl