Early Man [antikvár]

Introduction So eager have men been to know about their beginnings that they have everywhere created legends because they could not know the facts. If you yourself enjoy this kind of curiosity you are living at a good time, because the true knowledge of man's past is at last taking shape, in these very years. As Professor Howell shows you, discoveries of ancient man began a century ago. But for many years it was possible to describe only samples, such as Java man, and Neanderthal man. Fossils were too skimpy and dates too poorly known to establish connections, and new finds sometimes brought more confusion than clarity. The evidence has slowly grown, however, until a new understanding has lately become possible, and, in fact, necessary. I think that only an anthropologist can see with what skill Professor Howell has combined the new knowledge with his own experience to draw a fair and honest picture of what we know and what we can say. He has left out certain fossil men, not to suppress evidence but because they are so poorly known that they are merely distracting; he has done this entirely without distorting the meaning of the whole. He avoids sensationalism, the bane of popular writing on early man. In fact, he seems to note the existence of cannibalism in prehistory with the detached distaste it deserves. He does not write from any argumentative position; having no axe to grind in what he says, he will have no hatchet to bury later on. Writing simply is not the same as simplifying. This book does not avoid some ideas because they happen to be complex. The discussion of what constitutes a species is such an idea—a major one in biology—which will become more important in future considerations of man's evolution. Another difficult idea is the real meaning of tools in our development. Dr. Howell has managed to weave together the two threads of man's physical remains and man's advancing ability to make implements, in a way which has my admiration. It may seem easy to get this down on paper; it is not. Many have tried; few have succeeded. Careful as he is. Dr. Howell at the same time has not been afraid to apply imagination where it counts. He offers his educated suggestions on day-to-day problems and general conditions of life in the ancient past, and on the actual uses man made of his tools. Without such a view, the fossils of man are nothing more than bones. William Howells Professor of Anthropology Harvard University