Tom Higham - The World Before Us: How Science is Revealing a New Story of Our Human Origins

Tom Higham

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THE WORLD BEFORE US

How Science is Revealing a New Story of Our Human Origins

Tom Higham is Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Oxford and Director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. He has worked on the remains of Richard III, the Elephant Man and Egyptian pharaohs. Since 2010 he has been at the forefront of research on a new species of human, the Denisovans. He has presented on BBC Radio 4 and has appeared on various television documentaries, including presenting the BBCs Inside Out, and with David Attenborough on Attenborough and the Giant Egg. The YouTube video of his sell-out lecture tour has more than half a million views. An Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, he has published more than 100 scientific papers and edited three academic books, including the prizewinning The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating. This is his first trade book.

Our knowledge of where humanity came from has been revolutionized in the last ten years, and Tom Higham has been in the front lines for many of the biggest breakthroughs. The World Before Us is a fascinating and entertaining account, which tells us not only of how we began, but also where we might be going. If you read one book on human origins, this should be it Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules For Now

The application of new genetic science to pre-history is analogous to how the telescope transformed astronomy. Tom Higham, one of the worlds leading scientists in the field, brings us to the frontier of recent discoveries with a book that is both gripping and fun Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion

Opening up entirely new perspectives on the early history of humanity, this exciting book shows that we now have a revolutionary new tool for reconstructing the human past: DNA from minute pieces of tooth and bone, and even from the dirt on the floor of caves. Everyone studying history should be taking a course in DNA David Abulafia, author of The Boundless Sea

The who, what, where, when and how of human evolution, from one of the worlds experts on the dating of prehistoric fossils. Tom Higham blends evidence from archaeology, palaeontology and genetics to reveal a rich family album of our closest relatives, a cast of characters including cave-dwelling Neanderthals, mountain-adapted wanderers and island-living Hobbits, which thrived before Homo sapiens took over the world Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

Tom Higham has been at the pulsating centre of the close collaboration between archaeologists and geneticists that in the last few years discovered our previously unknown cousins the Denisovans and revealed the lost world in which they, Neanderthals and modern humans interacted and interbred. His thrilling book gives us a court-side view of this scientific revolution David Reich, author of Who We Are and How We Got Here

A brilliant distillation of the ideas and discoveries revolutionizing our understanding of human evolution. Tom Higham, one of the leaders of the revolution and the cutting-edge science on which it is based, introduces us to a complex world of many human species, whose genes and deeds live on in us today Chris Gosden, author of The History of Magic

From lab bench to trench, The World Before Us offers a personal tour of the newest science in palaeoanthropology. Highams three decades working on some of the most important and remarkable fossils ever found imbues his account with fascinating detail Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred

The story of our early ancestors as it has never been told before, written with clarity and enthusiasm by one of those involved. Essential reading for all Barry Cunliffe, author of The Scythians

This brilliant book on our forebears and, indeed, our own world makes cutting-edge science easily understandable and is profoundly entertaining at the same time. This is a magnificent tour de force by a leading expert written for you and I Brian Fagan, author of World Prehistory

For Joe, Miriam, Angelo and Elektra

. Sites and locations in Africa.

. Sites and locations in the Mediterranean.

. The earliest known Homo sapiens fossils, from the Jebel Irhoud site.

. Plan of Rising Star Cave.

. Sites and locations in Europe and the Near East.

. A Neanderthal foot emerges from El Sidrn.

. Sites and locations in the Altai.

. Plan of Denisova Cave.

. The Denisova 2 tooth.

. Climate change over the last 300,000 years.

. A perfectly preserved bone needle from Denisova Cave.

. Schematic of the polymerase chain reaction.

. Schematic showing Sanger sequencing.

. The rise in the number of whole ancient genomes published 201020.

. Sites and locations in the Far East.

. Svante Pbo and the author at Denisova Cave in 2014.

. The method of using ZooMS to identify human bones.

. The Uphill bone point.

. A perforated reindeer tooth pendant from Denisova Cave.

. Keyhole sampling of a Denisovan tooth ornament.

. The basis of the Bayesian model for Denisova Cave.

. Final ages determined from Denisova Cave for fossil remains.

. Distribution of Initial Upper Palaeolithic sites across Eurasia and North Africa.

. An Emiran point.

. Archaeological discoveries at Ksar Akil.

. The H5 climate event at Mandrin.

. Maxim Kozlikin, Michael Shunkov, Anatoly Derevianko and the author in Novosibirsk.

. How admixture and recombination works.

. Radiocarbon dates of the Ust-Ishim Man and Denisova Cave artefacts.

. Denisova 14 and Denisova 15.

. Sites and locations in Island Southeast Asia.

. Sites and locations in Sahul.

. Sites and locations in Java.

. Sangiran 17.

. Re-dating European Neanderthal evidence.

. A section of the genome from the Oase Man.

. The Serino site.

. View of Denisova Camp and Anui Valley.

. The entrance to Denisova Cave.

. In the East Chamber, Denisova.

. Neanderthal feather decoration.

. The hashtag at Gorhams Cave, Gibraltar.

. Image from La Pasiega in Spain.

. The Old Man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints.

. Johannes Krause.

. Svante Pbo.

. The Denisova 3 phalanx.

. Artists reconstruction of the Denisova 3 girl.

. Denisova 4 molar.

. Pierced mammal tooth pendants from Denisova Cave.

. Ostrich eggshell beads from Denisova Cave.

. Palaeolithic flute from the site of Hhle Fels, Germany.

. Denisovan rings, beads, plaques and a possible button.

. The author with copy of Denny.

. The Denny bone.

. Sam Brown.

. Liang Bua Hobbit cave; excavation of the Hobbit; Hobbit excavation and reconstruction.

. The Xiahe jawbone.

. Baishiya Karst Cave.

. Bruniquel Cave.

: photo with permission from A. Ronchitelli, Siena.

See for image numbering.

: Photography . Fabre, SSAC; copyright: Bruniquel Cave.