Seven Skeletons
The Evolution of the World's Most Famous Human Fossils
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Narrated by:
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Randye Kaye
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By:
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Lydia Pyne
About this listen
Over the last century, the search for human ancestors has spanned four continents and resulted in the discovery of hundreds of fossils. While most of these discoveries live quietly in museums, there are a few that have become world-renowned celebrity personas. In Seven Skeletons, historian of science Lydia Pyne explores how seven such famous fossils of our ancestors have the social cachet they enjoy today.
Drawing from archives, museums, and interviews, Pyne builds a cultural history for each celebrity fossil. These seven include the three-foot-tall "hobbit" from Flores, the Neanderthal of La Chapelle, the Taung Child, the Piltdown Man hoax, Peking Man, Australopithecus sediba, and Lucy - all vivid examples of how discoveries of our ancestors have been received, remembered, and immortalized.
With wit and insight, Pyne brings to life each fossil: how it is described, put on display, and shared among scientific communities and the broader public. This fascinating, endlessly entertaining book puts the impact of paleoanthropology into new context, a reminder of how our past as a species continues to affect, in astounding ways, our present culture and imagination.
©2016 Lydia V. Pyne (P)2016 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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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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The First Signs
- Unlocking the Mysteries of the World's Oldest Symbols
- By: Genevieve von Petzinger
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the most significant works on our evolutionary ancestry since Richard Leakey's Origins, The First Signs is the first-ever exploration of the geometric images that accompany most cave art around the world—the first indications of symbolic meaning, intelligence, and language.
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Crawling through caves-a memoir
- By GraceAgnes on 01-27-21
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Evolution
- The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory
- By: Edward J. Larson
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Edward J. Larson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and eminent science historian. This marvelously readable, yet sumptuously erudite work traces the development of the scientific theory of evolution. From Darwin's essential trip to the Galápagos, to the most contemporary studies in sociobiology, this work takes listeners both into the field and laboratories of the world's greatest evolutionary scientists, and shows how the theory of evolution has itself evolved.
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An Excellent History!
- By Bradly D. Elder on 08-13-07
By: Edward J. Larson
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Neanderthal Man
- In Search of Lost Genomes
- By: Svante Pääbo
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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A preeminent geneticist hunts the Neanderthal genome to answer the biggest question of them all: what does it mean to be human? What can we learn from the genes of our closest evolutionary relatives? Neanderthal Man tells the story of geneticist Svante Pbo’s mission to answer that question, beginning with the study of DNA in Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in his sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2009.
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Excellent science tale
- By Neuron on 01-19-15
By: Svante Pääbo
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Descartes' Bones
- A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason
- By: Russell Shorto
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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On a brutal winter's day in 1650 in Stockholm, Frenchman Rene Descartes, the most influential and controversial thinker of his time, was buried after a cold and lonely deathfar from home. Sixteen years later, the pious French Ambassador Hugues de Terlon secretly unearthed Descartes' bones and transported them to France. Why would this devoutly Catholic official care so much about the remains of a philosopher who washounded from country after country on charges of atheism?
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Philosophy of Modernity
- By Roger on 06-17-09
By: Russell Shorto
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Prehistory
- Making of the Human Mind
- By: Colin Renfrew
- Narrated by: Robert Ian MacKenzie
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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A giant of archaeology, Colin Renfrew has immeasurably improved our understanding of human history. In this passionately argued work, he offers a concise summary of prehistory - human existence that predates the development of written records - while challenging the very definition of prehistory itself.
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not for the intellectually challenged
- By Anthony on 07-14-10
By: Colin Renfrew
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The Jesus Discovery
- The New Archaeological Find That Reveals the Birth of Christianity
- By: Simcha Jacobovici, James D. Tabor
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2010, using a specialized robotic camera, authors Tabor and Jacobovici, working with archaeologists, geologists, and forensic anthropologists, explored a previously unexcavated tomb in Jerusalem from around the time of Jesus. They made a remarkable discovery. The tomb contained several ossuaries, or bone boxes, two of which were carved with an iconic image and a Greek inscription. Taken together, the image and the inscription constitute the earliest archaeological evidence of faith in Jesus’ resurrection.
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Intriguing but not conclusive
- By Tad Davis on 03-19-12
By: Simcha Jacobovici, 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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Sacred Treasure - The Cairo Genizah
- The Amazing Discoveries of Forgotten Jewish History in an Egyptian Synagogue Attic
- By: Rabbi Mark Glickman
- Narrated by: Rabbi Mark Glickman
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Indiana Jones meets The Da Vinci Code in an old Egyptian synagogue - the amazing story of one of the most important discoveries in modern religious scholarship. In 1897, Rabbi Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University stepped into the attic of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, and there found the largest treasure trove of medieval and early manuscripts ever discovered.
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Not what I thought it would be, but worth it
- By Lisa on 03-14-12
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Leonardo's Brain
- Understanding da Vinci's Creative Genius
- By: Leonard Shlain
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Bestselling author Leonard Shlain explores the life, art, and mind of Leonardo da Vinci, seeking to explain his singularity by looking at his achievements in art, science, psychology, and military strategy (yes), and then employing state of the art left-right brain scientific research to explain his universal genius. Shlain shows that no other person in human history has excelled in so many different areas as Da Vinci and he peels back the layers to explore the how and the why.
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As distracted as Da Vinci
- By D. McCracken on 05-12-15
By: Leonard Shlain
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What listeners say about Seven Skeletons
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Carmen C. Schofield
- 07-10-23
Not what I expected but very interesting
If I’d known what this book was about a wouldn’t have picked it and I would have missed an interesting listen. Provides insights into aspects of science, popularization of science and popular science we laymen would do well to consider. Bravo !
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- Walter P.
- 11-20-19
The quality of the audio is not good
The audio it just do not flow continually but same thing gets in the way of the quality . The speech or reading do not flaw in unison
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kay M Hawklee
- 06-22-17
Fascinating social history!
This book isn't so much about the evolution on hominids, but the life of the fossils that shed light on our family tree. It gives the history of famous fossils from their discovery to their current status in our society. It's a really fun book, because it presents a side of the fossils we don't often consciously think about. The narration was very good!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Sulpicia
- 07-11-18
Really enjoyed this book!
I really enjoyed this book. Lydia Pyne is trained in paleoanthropology and so she gives clear descriptions of finds and has had personal access to the fossils. She also has a nice flair for telling a story and explaining why and how certain fossils became famous. It is a great book for paleianyhropology fans. It is entirely accessible for beginners, but also includes fun facts and insights for those with more background.
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- Richard
- 10-20-16
Get ready to hear the same thing over and over
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
Not sure.
What could Lydia Pyne have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
She had a good premise, but by the third, fourth... time of hearing it again, I was way past it. There were lots of interesting details in the book, but they were buried by the repetitive nature of the book.
How did the narrator detract from the book?
I might be unfair to the narrator because I was bored many times during the book.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
There were lots of interesting facts in the book about the artifacts. If the author had covered more artifacts instead of repeating so much, the book might have been pretty good.
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1 person found this helpful