Homo Britannicus
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Homo Britannicus
HOMO BRITANNICUS tells the epic history of life in Britain, from man’s very first footsteps to the present day. Drawing on all the latest evidence and techniques of investigation, Chris Stringer describes times when Britain was so tropical that man lived alongside hippos and sabre tooth tiger, times so cold we shared this land with reindeer and mammoth, and times colder still when we were forced to flee altogether. This is the first time we have known the full extent of this history: the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project, led by Chris, has made discoveries that have stunned the world, pushing back the earliest date of arrival to 700,000 years ago. Our ancestors have been fighting a dramatic battle for survival here ever since.
The Empire of Climate
Author: David N. Livingstone
language: en
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Release Date: 2024-04-16
"As the looming consequences of climate change increasingly dominate our visions of the future, media coverage and public discourse often focus on how an altered climate will inevitably-and unevenly-reshape human life across the globe. Amid predictions of mass displacement, food shortages, conflict over resources, and widespread health problems, many people are newly reckoning with a very old idea: that the conditions of our climate will inexorably determine our future. This book examines the intellectual architecture of the once widely trafficked belief that climate exerts an ineluctable power over the human species, shaping everything from the wealth of nations to human health, from the outbreak of hostilities to the evolution of the brain and mental wellbeing. The book is organized around four themes: health, wealth, war, and mind. Each section opens with contemporary anxieties about the influence of an altered climate, before tracing the history of these fixations back to much earlier pronouncements on climate's influence. Livingstone illustrates how the specter of climatic influence has been used variously to explain, interpret, and redraw the world-and how it played a significant role in the development and justification of some of history's most destructive worldviews. He cites examples where climate has been critically implicated: in the politics of imperial control, labor power, and race relations; to explain industrial development, economic breakdown, and market performance; as a marker for national character and cultural collapse; as an explanation for past warfare and civil conflict today; and as a critical factor in psychological disorders, patterns of suicide, and the prevalence of acute psychosis. The book overall traces a powerful set of ideas that has spanned human history, and that continue to shape the modern world in various forms to this day"--
The Cradle of Humanity
One of the fundamental questions of our existence is why we are so smart. There are lots of drawbacks to having a large brain, including the huge food intake needed to keep the organ running, the frequency with which it goes wrong, and our very high infant and mother mortality rates compared with other mammals, due to the difficulty of giving birth to offspring with very large heads. So why did evolution favour the brainy ape? This question has been widely debated among biological anthropologists, and in recent years, Maslin and his colleagues have pioneered a new theory that might just be the answer. Looking back to a crucial period some 1.9 million years ago, when brain capacity increased by as much as 80%, The Cradle of Humanity explores the implications of two adaptive responses by our hominin ancestors to rapid climatic changes - big jaws, and big brains. Maslin argues that the impact of changing landscapes and fluctuating climates that led to the appearance of intermittent freshwater lakes in East Africa may have played a key role in human evolution. Alongside the physical evidence of fossils and tools, he considers social theories of why a large, complex brain would have provided a major advantage when trying to survive in the constantly changing East African landscape.