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First Steps
- How Upright Walking Made Us Human
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
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Publisher's summary
Blending history, science, and culture, a stunning and highly engaging evolutionary story exploring how walking on two legs allowed humans to become the planet’s dominant species.
Humans are the only mammals to walk on two, rather than four legs - a locomotion known as bipedalism. We strive to be upstanding citizens, honor those who stand tall and proud, and take a stand against injustices. We follow in each other’s footsteps and celebrate a child’s beginning to walk. But why, and how, exactly, did we take our first steps? And at what cost? Bipedalism has its drawbacks: Giving birth is more difficult and dangerous; our running speed is much slower than other animals; and we suffer a variety of ailments, from hernias to sinus problems.
In First Steps, paleoanthropologist Jeremy DeSilva explores how unusual and extraordinary this seemingly ordinary ability is. A seven-million-year journey to the very origins of the human lineage, First Steps shows how upright walking was a gateway to many of the other attributes that make us human - from our technological abilities, our thirst for exploration, our use of language - and may have laid the foundation for our species’ traits of compassion, empathy, and altruism. Moving from developmental psychology labs to ancient fossil sites throughout Africa and Eurasia, DeSilva brings to life our adventure walking on two legs.
Delving deeply into the story of our past and the new discoveries rewriting our understanding of human evolution, First Steps examines how walking upright helped us rise above all over species on this planet.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
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In Born in Africa, Martin Meredith follows the trail of discoveries about human origins made by scientists over the last hundred years, recounting their intense rivalry, personal feuds, and fierce controversies, as well as their feats of skill and endurance. The results have been momentous. Scientists have identified more than 20 species of extinct humans. They have firmly established Africa as the birthplace not only of humankind but also of modern humans.
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A Brief History of Paleoanthropology
- By Jeff Harris on 05-06-13
By: Martin Meredith
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How to Build a Dinosaur
- Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever
- By: Jack Horner, James Gorman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In movies, in novels, in comic strips, and on television, we've all seen dinosaurs - or at least somebody's educated guess of what they would look like. But what if it were possible to build, or grow, a real dinosaur without finding ancient DNA? Jack Horner, the scientist who advised Steven Spielberg on the blockbuster film Jurassic Park and a pioneer in bringing paleontology into the 21st century, teams up with the editor of the New York Times's Science Times section to reveal exactly what's in store.
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Good book but misplaced title
- By Robert on 06-19-15
By: Jack Horner, and others
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Why Evolution Is True
- By: Jerry A. Coyne
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Why evolution is more than just a theory: it is a fact. In all the current highly publicized debates about creationism and its descendant "intelligent design", there is an element of the controversy that is rarely mentioned: the evidence, the empirical truth of evolution by natural selection.
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As great as everyone says it is
- By Joseph on 12-01-10
By: Jerry A. Coyne
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Written in Stone
- Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
- By: Brian Switek
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Spectacular fossil finds make today's headlines; new technology unlocks secrets of skeletons unearthed 100 years ago. Still, evolution is often poorly represented by the media and misunderstood by the public. A potent antidote to pseudoscience, Written in Stone is an engrossing history of evolutionary discovery for anyone who has marveled at the variety and richness of life.
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Very good but has some weaknesses
- By Anonymous User on 06-23-19
By: Brian Switek
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Almost Human
- The Astonishing Tale of Homo Naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story
- By: Lee Berger, John Hawks
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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A story of defiance and determination by a controversial scientist, this is Lee Berger's own take on finding Homo naledi, an all-new species on the human family tree and one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century. In 2013, Lee Berger, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, heard of a cache of bones in a hard-to-reach underground cave in South Africa. He put out a call around the world for petite collaborators - men and women small and adventurous enough to be able to squeeze through eight-inch tunnels to reach a sunless cave forty feet underground. It worked.
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A deep story on the rocky trail to human origins
- By Peter Matthews on 01-14-19
By: Lee Berger, and others
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The Tyrannosaur Chronicles
- By: David Hone
- Narrated by: Gavin Osborn
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Adored by children and adults alike, tyrannosaurus is the most famous dinosaur in the world, one that pops up again and again in pop culture, often battling other beasts such as King Kong, triceratops, or velociraptors in Jurassic Park. But despite the hype, tyrannosaurus and the other tyrannosaurs are fascinating animals in their own right and are among the best-studied of all dinosaurs.
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An Engaging Biography of the King
- By Erik on 08-06-18
By: David Hone
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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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The First Human
- The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors
- By: Ann Gibbons
- Narrated by: Renee Raudman
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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This dynamic chronicle of the race to find the "missing links" between humans and apes transports readers into the highly competitive world of fossil hunting and into the lives of the ambitious scientists intent on pinpointing the dawn of humankind. The quest to find where and when the earliest human ancestors first appeared is one of the most exciting and challenging of all scientific pursuits.
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Interesting subject, poor execution
- By A book reader on 10-14-06
By: Ann Gibbons
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Who Ate the First Oyster?
- The Extraordinary People Behind the Greatest Firsts in History
- By: Cody Cassidy
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Who wore the first pants? Who painted the first masterpiece? Who first rode the horse? Who invented soap? This madcap adventure across ancient history uses everything from modern genetics to archaeology to uncover the geniuses behind these and other world-changing innovations. With a sharp sense of humor and boundless enthusiasm for the wonders of our ancient ancestors, Who Ate the First Oyster? profiles the perpetrators of the greatest firsts and catastrophes of prehistory.
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It could be better...
- By Alex on 04-06-21
By: Cody Cassidy
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I, Mammal
- By: Liam Drew
- Narrated by: Neil Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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A list of the attributes that define a mammal is a ragbag of things - fur, live birth, three bones in the middle ear, a brain whose two halves are robustly joined together.... But this curious collection of features contain the roots of all the biology that makes us what we are: monkeys with massive brains who parent extensively, enjoy sport and think lots. Which is to say, what makes us mammals makes us human.
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Who knew?
- By Fitmen on 04-25-18
By: Liam Drew
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Evolution
- What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters: Adapted for Audio
- By: Donald R. Prothero
- Narrated by: John Bishop
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
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Over the past 20 years, paleontologists have made tremendous fossil discoveries, including fossils that mark the growth of whales, manatees, and seals from land mammals and the origins of elephants, horses, and rhinos. Today there exists an amazing diversity of fossil humans, suggesting we walked upright long before we acquired large brains, and new evidence from molecules that enable scientists to decipher the tree of life as never before.
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NOT WORTH THE PRICE OF ADDMISSION
- By CRAIG on 12-25-14
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The Ancestor's Tale
- A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
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In The Ancestor's Tale, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins offers a masterwork: an exhilarating reverse tour through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life four billion years ago. Throughout the journey, Dawkins spins entertaining, insightful stories and sheds light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection, and extinction. The Ancestor's Tale is at once an essential education in evolutionary theory and riveting in its telling.
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Please do an unabridged version!
- By MovieExpertise on 09-29-16
By: Richard Dawkins
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Remarkable Creatures
- Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species
- By: Sean B. Carroll
- Narrated by: Jim Bond
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Just 150 years ago, most of our world was an unexplored wilderness. Our sense of its age was vastly off the mark. And what we believed to be the history of our own species consisted of fantastic myths and fairy tales; fossils, known for millennia, were seen as the bones of dragons and other imagined creatures. How did we learn so much so quickly? Remarkable Creatures celebrates the pioneers who replaced our fancies with the even more remarkable real story of how our world evolved.
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A Remarkable Journey
- By Michael Dowd on 03-22-09
By: Sean B. Carroll
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I wish this book was in American high schools.
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Up to the usual high standard
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Fossil Men
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In 1994, a team led by fossil-hunting legend Tim White—"the Steve Jobs of paleoanthropology"—uncovered the bones of a human ancestor in Ethiopia's Afar region. The findings challenged many assumptions about human evolution and repudiated a half-century of paleoanthropological orthodoxy. An intriguing tale of scientific discovery, obsession and rivalry that moves from the sun-baked desert of Africa to modern high-tech labs and academic lecture halls, Fossil Men is popular science at its best, and a must-listen for fans of Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson.
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A fascinating investigation of the origin of humans based on incredible new discoveries and advanced scientific technology.
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Brave Attempt
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By: Madelaine Böhme
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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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In our unique genomes, every one of us carries the story of our species - births, deaths, disease, war, famine, migration, and a lot of sex. But those stories have always been locked away - until now. Who are our ancestors? Where did they come from? Geneticists have suddenly become historians, and the hard evidence in our DNA has completely upended what we thought we knew about ourselves. Acclaimed science writer Adam Rutherford explains exactly how genomics is completely rewriting the human story - from 100,000 years ago to the present.
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We human beings share 98 percent of our genes with chimpanzees. Yet humans are the dominant species on the planet - having founded civilizations and religions, developed intricate and diverse forms of communication, learned science, built cities, and created breathtaking works of art - while chimps remain animals concerned primarily with the basic necessities of survival. What is it about that two percent difference in DNA that has created such a divergence between evolutionary cousins?
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Up to the usual high standard
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In 1994, a team led by fossil-hunting legend Tim White—"the Steve Jobs of paleoanthropology"—uncovered the bones of a human ancestor in Ethiopia's Afar region. The findings challenged many assumptions about human evolution and repudiated a half-century of paleoanthropological orthodoxy. An intriguing tale of scientific discovery, obsession and rivalry that moves from the sun-baked desert of Africa to modern high-tech labs and academic lecture halls, Fossil Men is popular science at its best, and a must-listen for fans of Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson.
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What listeners say about First Steps
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sarah C.
- 06-07-22
Mammalian Bipedalism's Many Layers
As DeSilva points out early in this book, bipedalism is rare in mammals other than humans. Apes and monkeys will occasionally walk on two legs, but not in the same way humans do. Why is that? There isn't a clear answer and since we're alone in this, we don't have other examples to study. But walking on two legs has fundamentally shaped who we humans are.
I appreciate DeSilva showing in the first few chapters how walking in hominid fossils has varied over time and that even our ancestors and other hominids didn't walk the same way. The search for fossil records to fill in more blanks in bipedal understanding continues, but our muscles and bones have also visibly changed thanks to what we have found so that it's becoming clearer when primates and human ancestors began to diverge in terms of movement. And the advantages and disadvantages of two-legged versus four-legged walking are very obvious when studying our closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos.
The most interesting parts of this book for me were the discussions of birth effecting walking in humans and why we're so prone to movement-injuries not seen in other animals. I've never understood entirely why human childbirth is so laborious and potentially deadly compared to animals; a narrower pelvis and babies having to change positions to exit explains it some. So does why bone health is such a concern for older people and how muscles that we use (or don't use) for movement can be easily torn or dislocated.
I picked this book out of curiosity, but I am very pleased with how the read went and am more interested in the topic than before. I recommend getting this!
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6 people found this helpful
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- Barb Freeman
- 09-08-22
Fascinating read
Enjoyed the depth of knowledge. Love learning! Saw Lucy when in Eastern Africa. Great to ponder on where we came from and who we have become
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- Paige
- 05-14-21
Excellent journey through human evolution
A fun and personable tour through human origins, meeting many of our ancestors, highly recommend!
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4 people found this helpful
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- bruce kittrick
- 05-01-23
The master of the hominid ankle speaks
And it is a fascinating story spanning just under 7 million years… the long and exciting begins with… the first tentative step. Fossils and physiology give us great insight. The tale has pathos, sharp scientific insight and will you interest in humans. Stupendous effort. Kudos.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Mum
- 12-31-23
Excellent listening
Great book to walk with. Links walking evolution to so many different areas of our lives. Well done.
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- Owen
- 02-26-23
Fantastic!
Fantastic listen! I am an anthropology professor and his delivery, knowledge and understanding is top notch and easy to understand. Great book!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Anat
- 04-17-22
Fun and interesting
This was really fun and easy to follow. Lots of interesting info and theories, nicely written and quite gripping. If you’re a non-scientist interested in some paleontology, you’ll probably enjoy this very much (as did I).
The audiobook narrator was perfect for this.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Kindle Customer
- 04-13-21
Loved this book.
This book is clear and fascinating. It sparked my imagination and uplifted me to learn about the diverse experiments of bepedalism in hominins. It's amazing to learn about different ages on the earth and the creatures that wandered on it. I enjoyed learning about other animals bipedality, such as the Carolina Butcher and the Giant Shortfaced kangaroo.
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2 people found this helpful
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- tommee3d
- 07-20-21
Fantastic
Well written, educational, and captivating! It’s amazing how much we can understand through the fossil record and through the stories of those who embark on journeys across the world to find those fossils.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Richard Liebler
- 07-06-22
Highly interesting
Well narrated. Very easy for a person without anthropology training to understand and enjoy.
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3 people found this helpful