Word: leakeys
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That dramatic scenario occurred nearly 4 million years ago in East Africa's Great Rift Valley. But last week it was vividly recalled by Anthropologist Mary Leakey, who announced that she and her co-workers had found new and revealing traces of our early roots at the site of that ancient African spa: the actual footprints of one of those man-apes. Radioactive dating showed that the prints had been made some 3.59 million to 3.75 million years ago, a hint the creature may be the oldest-known direct ancestor...
Richard E. Leakey, Director...
...might have called the home-grown dinosaur syndrome. (Think of all those monsters in museums of natural history today that are composed of two very ancient shin bones and otherwise made up of very 20th century cream-colored plastic.) This problem is hardly unique to cultural anthropology. Richard E Leakey, renowned paleoanthropologist (he digs up skulls and other bone fragments in Africa) confronts the problem of envisioning human ancestors that lived over 2 million years ago and have left us only a few clues in the form of bone splinters now half covered by desert sand...
...though, Harris's task is even more difficult. Harris poses a theory of cultural history paralleling Darwin's theory of natural selection--that cultural forms either adapt and survive or give way to "fitter" varieties. It is based on considerably more concrete evidence than the pioneering labors of Leakey and his father. Harris has made numerous field trips to Mozambique, India, Ecuador and Brazil in search of ancient cultures. And one can theorize with a fair degree of accuracy about what, say, the Aztecs ate and wore based on the archaelogical remains. These are far more accessible than those...
...only later that one begins to wonder. Certainly, Harris will be challenged by many of the specialists--this is the inevitable risk of generalizing about that endlessly debated human historical condition; there will always be someone, somewhere, who has evidence that contradicts one's thesis. For example, Leakey's recent book, Origins, espouses the more traditional view of warfare and materialism as the inevitable outcome of the transition fron hunting to agricultural communities...