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In his new book The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack, human paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall argues that a long tradition of "human exceptionalism" in paleoanthropology has distorted the picture of human evolution. Drawing partly on his own career-from young scientist in awe of his elders to crotchety elder statesman-Tattersall offers an idiosyncratic look at the competitive world of paleoanthropology, beginning with Charles Darwin 150 years ago, and continuing through the Leakey dynasty in Africa, and concluding with the latest astonishing findings in the Caucasus. The book's title refers to the 1856 discovery of a clearly very old skull cap in Germany's Neander Valley. The possessor had a brain as large as a modern human, but a heavy low braincase with a prominent brow ridge. Scientists tried hard to explain away the inconvenient possibility that this was not actually our direct relative. One extreme interpretation suggested that the preserved leg bones were curved by both rickets, and by a life on horseback. The pain of the unfortunate individual's affliction had caused him to chronically furrow his brow in agony, leading to the excessive development of bone above the eye sockets. The subsequent history of human evolutionary studies is full of similarly fanciful interpretations.
- Sales Rank: #3291615 in Books
- Published on: 2015-07-28
- Formats: Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.40" h x .60" w x 5.30" l,
- Running time: 9 Hours
- Binding: MP3 CD
Review
"An opinionated, authoritative, and delightfully provocative account of efforts to make sense of human fossil discoveries." ---Kirkus Starred Review
About the Author
Ian Tattersall is Curator Emeritus in the Division of Anthropology of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The author of many books, including the widely praised Masters of the Planet, he is often interviewed about human evolution in the media and speaks around the world. He is the winner of numerous awards, and lives in Greenwich Village.
An award-winning audio engineer for over forty years, Tom Perkins has expanded his skills to narrating and has more than sixty titles to his credit. He learned by working with the world's best voice talent during his career, and he continues to engineer a variety of projects.
Most helpful customer reviews
36 of 40 people found the following review helpful.
A survey with an agenda and a Good Read for paleoanthropology buffs
By j a haverstick
I’ve always had an interest in paleoanthropology and am old enough to have seen many of the breakthroughs of the last century and this. There are a finite number of books I’ll be reading before I go to sleep for good and so I try not to waste my time with the genre of science/biographies. But I heard Tattersall interviewed last Friday on the PBS program Science Friday and was interested enough to order this book, especially as he advertised himself as a bit of a rebel and was plugging the idea of Homo as a varied genus, sadly now represented by only one species, and not a natural progression to modern wo/man. It’s amazing how much of that medieval teleology still exists, maybe not in academic papers but in the general discourse, including that of science practitioners.
Well, this is sure a book loaded with personal recollections and private thoughts and details, but it wasn’t two pages in that I was hooked. Tattersall has a great style and a sharp and laconic wit. We meet guntoting teeniebop revolutionaries, claptrap airplanes and running out of beer in a hot climate before we’re on page five! Continuing in that vein would have made a great book. But although this is a first person account of pale anthropology of the last 60 or so years, it doers not rely only on colorful episodes. Tattersall has been at the heart of this discipline and his account is an account of how personalities and default assumptions have colored the field.
If you’re going to read this, you need a basic acquaintance with the recent (ca. 50 yrs.) players. I have that, but I was still hard put to put it all together into a coherent narrative: who said what in !972 and what another riposte was in 1999, etc. etc.
Let’s cut to th4 chase. Tattersall is very interested in the internecine wars about whether Homo is a large category or whether there are many species denied by the Unifiers. He thinks paleontologists are na�ve in the systematic of cladistics in general. If you don’t get what I’m saying, better think about buying this book twice.
He works this book around this theme. It is only 200 pages long and I read in two days and so can you if you are interested in the subject. There is a positive side to taking a huge mass of data and reducing it to “this or that’, and I very much appreciated Tattersall’s reduction. It made a lot of sense of what to me was perhaps unsorted information from many sources in the last half century. On the negative side, though, there was so much history presented in a pretty scanty way that it often seemed like reading a list. That’s why I’m taking a star off the review. I think that perhaps Tattersall could have presented his belief that not making hard and serious differentiations among the species of Homo and other hominids leads to Exceptionalist think ing about human beings could have been more sharply presented. Why exceptionalist thinking? Because looking at evolution working on just Homo in general suggests that this outcome (us) was a refinement rather than one outcome among many other possibilities.
I’m pretty much on the author’s side when it comes to the hard reality of species (in this context, anyhow). But even he admits at the end that species are “leaky”. When I was a boy I read that Plato thought that for every noun (Horse, Table, Neanderthal) there was an object. His friend Aristotle brought this down to earth opining that the world is arranged into Natural Kinds (horses, tables, Neanderthals) Couple of millenia later, William James suggested that our categories are something WE bring to our world to suit our purposes. I’m kind of with James here…if I had to choose. About Tattersall’s thinking that blurring the lines leads to exceptionalist, teleological mindset, I’d have to remark that this book is larded with references to the special and amazing character of human beings. Really? If ants could talk, they’d no doubt be talking about their own special and amazing qualities. But ants can’t talk , you say. No but humans can’t carry a hundred times their own weight and forming living bridges over rivers with their own bodies. Q.E.D.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
A MUST READ for those interested in human evolution
By Nathan H Lents
I had the pleasure of reviewing this book for the Human Evolution Blog and interviewing the author:
http://thehumanevolutionblog.com/2015/06/23/a-conversation-with-ian-tattersall-about-his-new-book-the-strange-case-of-the-rickety-cossack-and-other-cautionary-tales-from-human-evolution/
This book is a history of the discipline of paleoanthropology, a close-up look at how the scientists approached the difficult task of making sense of the human fossil record that emerged painfully slow from the earth. While that may sound dry, the book is actually filled with drama! There are enormous egos, bitter disputes, grand but baseless claims, and even a shouting match on live television. It's not always an easy read, but well worth the effort.
This should be required reading of anthropology and paleontology students because of how it important it is to understand that roots and history of one's discipline, a point that Tattersall makes throughout the book. The take-home lesson for this for young scientists is, "Question everything," advice we could all do well to heed. Tattersall expressly rejects the tendency among scientists to exert authority in the face of dogmatic challenges and hide or minimize our own mistakes. Instead, the evidence should be carefully studied, cautiously interpreted, and, in the end, be allowed to speak for itself. There is also a strong call to remember that the evolutionary history of humans followed the same meandering path that other species have taken. Our history was not a steady march toward perfection and "we are the pinnacles of nothing," as he states in the final paragraph.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Nice Review of our History on this planet.
By VirgilCane
Thanks to Bruce Chatwin I've always had a passing interest in the origins of man. It was nice to get an updated version of what some paleoanthropologists agree on currently. Like the Brothers Karamazov this book started out a little slow. However unlike the Brothers K. it got better. I was interested to learn that when Potassium Argon dating was first used in 1950 the age of hominids went from an estimate of 600,000 years to 1.75 million years. Other interesting facts included that fire domestication was estimated at 1 million years ago and 2.5 million years ago stone tools marked a significant cognitive leap. Also around 1.8 million years ago the modern body form appeared and brain size began its remarkable increase. And the current form of homo sapiens appears to be about 190,000 years old. I was reminded of Roger Water's concept album where the aliens come to earth and piece together what happened to us, "We watched the tragedy unfold. We did as we were told we bought and sold. It was the greatest show on earth. But then it was over. We oohed and aahed We drove our racing cars. We ate our last few jars of caviar. And somewhere out there in the stars A keen-eyed look-out Spied a flickering light Our last hurrah And when they found our shadows Grouped 'round the TV sets They ran down every lead They repeated every test They checked out all the data in their lists And then the alien anthropologists Admitted they were still perplexed But on eliminating every other reason For our sad demise They logged the only explanation left This species has amused itself to death."
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