In our section on the pre-historic world, Beth Shapiro talks about her best books on de-extinction, or rather extinction, since, as she points out, bringing extinct species back to life is impossible outside of Hollywood.
Tim White, the paleoanthropologist talks about Darwin, the ancestry and origins of humans in his best books on prehistory. Paul Barrett names his best books on dinosaurs and discusses the rich diversity and longevity of the species that come under that name. The palaeontologist Richard Fortey, discussing his selection of the best books on palaeontology, goes even further back in time and talks about the importance of trilobite fossils in understanding pre-historic geography and of algae and bacteria in creating the conditions on earth that allowed the evolution of oxygen-hungry life forms, like dinosaurs and humans.
- Read1The Inheritors by William Golding, with a foreword by Ben Okri
- Read2The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel
- Read3The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron
- Read4The Naked Neanderthal: A New Understanding of the Human Creature by Ludovic Slimak and translated by David Watson
- Read5The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks
Five Books Imagining Neanderthals, recommended by Rebecca Wragg Sykes
All archaeologists have to do some imagining because the data they work with is so partial and fragmentary, says Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art.She picks five books that help bring to life our closest relations, from a historical novel by a Nobel Prize-winning writer to a work of sci-fi about a hybrid Neanderthal child.
Five Books Imagining Neanderthals, recommended by Rebecca Wragg Sykes
All archaeologists have to do some imagining because the data they work with is so partial and fragmentary, says Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art.She picks five books that help bring to life our closest relations, from a historical novel by a Nobel Prize-winning writer to a work of sci-fi about a hybrid Neanderthal child.
Five Books Imagining Neanderthals, recommended by Rebecca Wragg Sykes- Read1Femmes de la préhistoire by Claudine Cohen
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- Read3L'homme préhistorique est aussi une femme by Marylène Patou-Mathis
- Read4The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Role of Women in Prehistory J. M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer and Jake Page
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The best books on Prehistoric Women, recommended by Thomas Cirotteau
Thanks to scientific advances, we're finding out more and more about prehistoric people, including women and their lives during the Upper Paleolithic era. French filmmaker Thomas Cirotteau, director of the documentary and co-author of a book about Lady Sapiens, recommends books to find out more about our female ancestors, who while separated from us by tens of thousands of years, have been brought tantalizingly close by new techniques and discoveries.
The best books on Prehistoric Women, recommended by Thomas Cirotteau
Thanks to scientific advances, we’re finding out more and more about prehistoric people, including women and their lives during the Upper Paleolithic era. French filmmaker Thomas Cirotteau, director of the documentary and co-author of a book about Lady Sapiens, recommends books to find out more about our female ancestors, who while separated from us by tens of thousands of years, have been brought tantalizingly close by new techniques and discoveries.
The best books on Prehistoric Women, recommended by Thomas Cirotteau- Read1The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson
- Read2The Cave Bear Story by Björn Kurtén
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- Read4The Making of the Fittest by Sean B Carroll
- Read5The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
The best books on Extinction and De-Extinction, recommended by Beth Shapiro
Evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiro tells us why it's impossible to clone a mammoth, and why we might want to. She guides us through five inspiring books to get us thinking about extinction and the role genetics could potentially play in maintaining biodiversity.
The best books on Extinction and De-Extinction, recommended by Beth Shapiro
Evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiro tells us why it’s impossible to clone a mammoth, and why we might want to. She guides us through five inspiring books to get us thinking about extinction and the role genetics could potentially play in maintaining biodiversity.
The best books on Extinction and De-Extinction, recommended by Beth Shapiro- Read1Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
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- Read3The Journals of Lewis and Clark by Bernard DeVoto (editor)
- Read4The First Human by Ann Gibbons
- Read5Missing Links by John Reader
The best books on Prehistory, recommended by Tim White
Paleoanthropologist Tim White tells us about his work investigating the origins of homo sapiens and explains what a 4.4 million-year-old skeleton he found in Africa tells us about our common past.
The best books on Prehistory, recommended by Tim White
Paleoanthropologist Tim White tells us about his work investigating the origins of homo sapiens and explains what a 4.4 million-year-old skeleton he found in Africa tells us about our common past.
The best books on Prehistory, recommended by Tim White- Read1The Dinosaur Heresies by Robert Bakker
- Read2Bone Wars by Tom Rea
- Read3The Dinosaur Hunters by Deborah Cadbury
- Read4The Complete Dinosaur by James O Farlow and Michael Brett-Surman
- Read5The Dinosauria (Second Edition) by David B Weishampel, Peter Dodson, and Halszka Osmólska
The best books on Dinosaurs, recommended by Paul Barrett
Palaeontologist and dinosaur specialist Paul Barrett says many of the 1,200 known species of dinosaur were far more complex than we once thought. Some were brightly feathered, many were at least partly warm-blooded
The best books on Dinosaurs, recommended by Paul Barrett
Palaeontologist and dinosaur specialist Paul Barrett says many of the 1,200 known species of dinosaur were far more complex than we once thought. Some were brightly feathered, many were at least partly warm-blooded
The best books on Dinosaurs, recommended by Paul Barrett- Read1Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould
- Read2Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte and Michael Benton
- Read3Trilobites by H B Whittington
- Read4Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth by Andrew H Knoll
- Read5Extinction by Douglas H Erwin
The best books on Palaeontology, recommended by Richard Fortey
Palaeontologist Richard Fortey says it took tiny organisms two billion years of work to oxygenate the planet sufficiently for our kind of life, including trilobites, dinosaurs and ourselves, to evolve
The best books on Palaeontology, recommended by Richard Fortey
Palaeontologist Richard Fortey says it took tiny organisms two billion years of work to oxygenate the planet sufficiently for our kind of life, including trilobites, dinosaurs and ourselves, to evolve
The best books on Palaeontology, recommended by Richard Fortey