lew@ihuxr.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.) (02/26/84)
LUCY, THE BEGINNINGS OF MANKIND is by Donald Johanson and Maitland Edey. The latter author is actually the ghostwriter, even if his name is on the cover. The book is written in the first person, as though Johnason is speaking. The book opens with an unsettling discourse by Johanson about the importance of luck in archaeology, and how he "felt good" the morning of his Lucy discovery. He freely declares that he is superstitious, and that he knows he is lucky. This theme is dropped quickly and doesn't reappear, unless you count the egocentric tinge of the account as being a manifestation of the same personality trait. The book does give a very personal view of the events, even to the point of being a bit gossipy. I thought it made the book all the more interesting. I should think it would take a pushy, egocentric personality to find itself heading an expedition in remotest Ethiopia with a Ph.D. still pending. Insofar as the book represents a popular argument for the correctness of Johanson's interpretation, as opposed to the Leakeys', it reminds me of Galileo's style of writing. I think the broadness of the issues being debated make today's paleoanthropology analogous to the astronomy of Galileo's day. As an introduction to the current state of affairs in paleoanthropology, I found the book to be excellent. However, the explanations trumped up as dialogue were a little tacky at times. I felt I could see the ghostwriting at the surface at these points. I was impressed by the sheer amount of work and the broad range of expertise involved in this field. I was less impressed by a speculative chapter on the evolutionary origins of bipedalism. This was devoted to the theory advocated by C. Owen Lovejoy, which emphasizes the importance of infant care in creating an adaptive advantage for this behavior. I thought the importance of habitat was given short shrift. Anyway, it's interesting that the "ape coming down from the trees" concept has not only survived but has been brought into sharp focus by the early emergence of bipedalism which Lucy and the Laetoli footprint discoveries have established. Lew Mammel, Jr. ihnp4!ihuxr!lew