The Cradle of Humanity

How the changing landscape of Africa made us so smart

de

Éditeur :

OUP Oxford


Paru le : 2017-01-18



eBook Téléchargement , DRM LCP 🛈 DRM Adobe 🛈
Lecture en ligne (streaming)
11,08

Téléchargement immédiat
Dès validation de votre commande
Ajouter à ma liste d'envies
Image Louise Reader présentation

Louise Reader

Lisez ce titre sur l'application Louise Reader.

Description
Humans are rather weak when compared with many other animals. We are not particular fast and have no natural weapons. Yet Homo sapiens currently number nearly 7.5 billion and are set to rise to nearly 10 billion by the middle of this century. We have influenced almost every part of the Earth system and as a consequence are changing the global environmental and evolutionary trajectory of the Earth. So how did we become the worlds apex predator and take over the planet? Fundamental to our success is our intelligence, not only individually but more importantly collectively. But why did evolution favour the brainy ape? Given the calorific cost of running our large brains, not to mention the difficulties posed for childbirth, this bizarre adaptation must have given our ancestors a considerable advantage. In this book Mark Maslin brings together the latest insights from hominin fossils and combines them with evidence of the changing landscape of the East African Rift Valley to show how all these factors led to selection pressures that favoured our ultrasocial brains. Astronomy, geology, climate, and landscape all had a part to play in making East Africa the cradle of humanity and allowing us to dominate the planet.
Pages
256 pages
Collection
n.c
Parution
2017-01-18
Marque
OUP Oxford
EAN papier
9780191009716
EAN PDF
9780191009709

Informations sur l'ebook
Nombre pages copiables
0
Nombre pages imprimables
0
Taille du fichier
28314 Ko
Prix
11,08 €
EAN EPUB
9780191009716

Informations sur l'ebook
Nombre pages copiables
0
Nombre pages imprimables
0
Taille du fichier
3328 Ko
Prix
11,08 €

Mark Maslin (FRGS, FRSA) is a Professor of Climatology and Environmental Sciences at University College London, and is currently a Royal Society Industrial Fellow. He was the former Director of the UCL Environment Institute and Head of the Department of Geography, and in recent years has presented over 45 public talks, at the UK Space conference, Oxford, Cambridge, Tate Modern, Royal Society of Medicine, British Museum, Natural History Museum, Freshfields, Goldman Sachs and both the Norwegian and UK Government. He has been published in multiple journals, and is the author of Climate: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2013), and Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2014), now in its third editon.

Suggestions personnalisées