
Ancient Bones
Unearthing the Astonishing New Story of How We Became Human
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Narrated by:
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Aimée Ayotte
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By:
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Madelaine Böhme
About this listen
“Part Sherlock Holmes, part Indiana Jones, Ancient Bones is an entertaining and provocative retelling of the human evolutionary story.” (Jeremy DeSilva, author of First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human)
Fans of Sapiens will love this “fascinating forensic inquiry into human origins” (Kirkus), where a renowned paleontologist takes listeners behind the scenes of one of the most groundbreaking investigations into the origins of humankind.
Africa has long been considered the cradle of life - where life and humans evolved - but somewhere west of Munich, Germany, paleoclimatologist and paleontologist Madelaine Böhme and her team make a discovery that is beyond anything they ever imagined: the 12-million-year-old bones of an ancient ape - Danuvius guggenmos - which makes headlines around the world and defies prevailing theories of human history and where human life began.
Ancient Bones takes listeners behind the scenes of this incredible discovery and invites listeners to explore theories concerning early hominins to prehistoric humans, how climate and the environment were driving forces behind evolution, and how pivotal evolutionary steps - from our ability to communicate using complex speech to walking upright and using our hands to create - were necessary for humans to evolve and live on this planet. Blending science, history, and mystery, Ancient Bones explores a fascinating new chapter in the origins of humanity and, above all, brings clarity to what makes humans human.
With prose that comes across like a thrilling detective story, this exciting exploration of humanity will prove an indispensable listen for those who are endlessly curious about who we are, how we got here, and what comes next.
Praise for Ancient Bones:
“Readable and thought-provoking. Madelaine Böhme is an iconoclast whose fossil discoveries have challenged long-standing ideas on the origins of the ancestors of apes and humans.” (Steve Brusatte, New York Times best-selling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs)
“An inherently fascinating, impressively informative, and exceptionally thought-provoking read.” (Midwest Book Review)
“An impressive introduction to the burgeoning recalibration of paleoanthropology.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Download the accompanying reference guide.©2020 Madelaine Böhme (P)2021 Greystone BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
The fascinating group of animals called dinosaurs became extinct some 65 million years ago (except for their feathered descendants). In their place evolved an enormous variety of land creatures, especially mammals, which in their way were every bit as remarkable as their Mesozoic cousins. The Age of Mammals, the Cenozoic Era, has never had its Jurassic Park, but it was an amazing time in earth's history, populated by a wonderful assortment of bizarre animals. The rapid evolution of thousands of species of mammals brought forth many incredible creatures—including our own ancestors.
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Mammals are immersed in minutia.
- By Bertha Watkins on 04-01-24
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The Rise and Reign of the Mammals
- A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us
- By: Steve Brusatte
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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We humans are the inheritors of a dynasty that has reigned over the planet for nearly 66 million years, through fiery cataclysm and ice ages: the mammals. Our lineage includes saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, armadillos the size of a car, cave bears three times the weight of a grizzly, clever scurriers that outlasted Tyrannosaurus rex, and even other types of humans, like Neanderthals.
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Fantastic Book
- By Peter Jensen on 09-08-22
By: Steve Brusatte
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A Short History of Humanity
- A New History of Old Europe
- By: Johannes Krause, Thomas Trappe, Caroline Waight - translator
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Johannes Krause is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and a brilliant pioneer in the field of archaeogenetics - archaeology augmented by DNA sequencing technology - which has allowed scientists to reconstruct human history reaching back hundreds of thousands of years before recorded time. In this surprising account, Krause and journalist Thomas Trappe rewrite a fascinating chapter of this history, the peopling of Europe, that takes us from the Neanderthals and Denisovans to the present.
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Not a short history of humanity
- By Brent on 05-02-21
By: Johannes Krause, and others
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Origin
- A Genetic History of the Americas
- By: Jennifer Raff
- Narrated by: Tanis Parenteau, Jennifer Raff - Interview, Yvonne Russo - Interview
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Origin is the story of who the first peoples in the Americas were, how and why they made the crossing, how they dispersed south, and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their complete genomes. Origin provides an overview of these new histories throughout North and South America, and a glimpse into how the tools of genetics reveal details about human history and evolution.
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A Superb Account Of The Science Of Indigenous American Anthropology
- By Linda S. on 02-21-22
By: Jennifer Raff
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The Ends of the World
- Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions
- By: Peter Brannen
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Our world has ended five times: It has been broiled, frozen, poison gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth's past dead ends, and in the process offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the 21st century have analogs in these five extinctions.
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A Kid's Science Book FOR ADULTS!!
- By aaron on 06-15-17
By: Peter Brannen
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A Pocket History of Human Evolution
- How We Became Sapiens
- By: Silvana Condemi, Francois Savatier
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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A Pocket History of Human Evolution brings us up-to-date on the exploits of all our ancient relatives. Paleoanthropologist Silvana Condemi and science journalist François Savatier consider what accelerated our evolution: Was it tools, our "large" brains, language, empathy, or something else entirely? And why are we the sole survivors among many early bipedal humans? Their conclusions reveal the various ways ancient humans live on today - from gossip as modern "grooming" to our gendered division of labor - and what the future might hold for our strange and unique species.
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Well presented and very informative.
- By Jim Griggs on 11-11-21
By: Silvana Condemi, and others
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Masters of the Planet
- The Search for Our Human Origins
- By: Ian Tattersall
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifty thousand years ago - merely a blip in evolutionary time - our Homo sapiens ancestors were competing for existence with several other human species, just as their precursors had done for millions of years. Yet something about our species distinguished it from the pack, and ultimately led to its survival while the rest became extinct. Just what was it that allowed Homo sapiens to become masters of the planet? Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, takes us deep into the fossil record to uncover what made humans so special.
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Great Book, Some Sloppy Editing
- By DB on 11-23-20
By: Ian Tattersall
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Who We Are and How We Got Here
- By: David Reich
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Geneticists like David Reich have made astounding advances in the field of genomics, which is proving to be as important as archaeology, linguistics, and written records as a means to understand our ancestry. In Who We Are and How We Got Here, Reich allows listeners to discover how the human genome provides not only all the information a human embryo needs to develop but also the hidden story of our species.
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Great Book, No Maps Available thru Audible
- By Jane W. on 07-15-18
By: David Reich
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Dinosaurs Rediscovered
- The Scientific Revolution in Paleontology
- By: Michael J. Benton
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In Dinosaurs Rediscovered, leading paleontologist Michael J. Benton gathers together all the latest paleontological evidence, tracing the transformation of dinosaur study from its roots in antiquated natural history to an indisputably scientific field. Among other things, the book explores how dinosaur remains are found and excavated, and especially how paleontologists read the details of dinosaurs' lives from their fossils - their colors, their growth, and even whether we will ever be able to bring them back to life.
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Great overview of advances in dinosaur paleo
- By Keegan on 03-28-20
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Ancestors
- A Prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials
- By: Alice Roberts
- Narrated by: Alice Roberts
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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We often think of Britain springing from nowhere with the arrival of the Romans. But in Ancestors, pre-eminent archaeologist, broadcaster and academic Professor Alice Roberts explores what we can learn about the very earliest Britons – from their burial sites. Although we have very little evidence of what life was like in prehistorical times, here their stories are told through the bones and funerary offerings left behind, preserved in the ground for thousands of years.
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Current narrative
- By James on 06-26-21
By: Alice Roberts
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Kindred
- By: Rebecca Wragg Sykes
- Narrated by: Rebecca Wragg Sykes
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In Kindred, Neanderthal expert Becky Wragg Sykes shoves aside the cliché of the shivering ragged figure in an icy wasteland and reveals the Neanderthal you don’t know, who lived across vast and diverse tracts of Eurasia and survived through hundreds of thousands of years of massive climate change. Using a thematic rather than chronological approach, this book will shed new light on where they lived, what they ate and the increasingly complex Neanderthal culture that is being discovered.
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Horrible Recording/Sound Quality
- By Howard Houchen on 11-24-20
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First Peoples in a New World
- Colonizing Ice Age America
- By: David J. Meltzer
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 11 hrs
- Abridged
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More than 12,000 years ago, in one of the greatest triumphs of prehistory, humans colonized North America, a continent that was then truly a new world. Just when and how they did so has been one of the most perplexing and controversial questions in archaeology.
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Last Gasp of American Anthropological Orthodoxy
- By Thomas66 on 01-05-17
By: David J. Meltzer
Advances in paleontology made accessible and interesting
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Amazing pre-history lesson
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A Thoroughly Enjoyable, Thoroughly Thought-Provoking Must-Read
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Interesting theory and evidence
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Best Thing About Audible, ‘Rewind’ !
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Aimée Ayotte does a fine job narrating the story but her performance likely wouldn't keep someone listening if they don't already find the book interesting and enjoyable. I did find her reading to be a bit on the slower side even with the 1.3x speed I regularly listen at. I have no real complaints with her performance and the speed is easy enough to adjust and shouldn't be a problem for most listeners who know their own preferences.
Overall I found Ancient Bones to be an enjoyable listen and well worth the credit however, at the time of this review, Audible is missing the accompanying PDF so you might need to do some searching to fully appreciate the book.
A Wider Perspective
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Struggled to finish
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Alternate human origin theory
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Brave Attempt
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Though the narrator did an excellent job, this is one book that should probably be read on text or perhaps listened to elsewhere. I say that because the author frequently references images and figures. And with every one the narrator makes a point to mention that the images are accompanied with the audiobook. This was very irksome as Audible did not, in fact, include them.
Great Read. Where's The Accompanied PDF, Audible!?
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