John Hawks has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 18 ratings. The most-rated is The Rise of Humans: Great Scientific Debates.
The Rise of Humans: Great Scientific Debates
Summary
Trying to understand our human origins has always been a fundamental part of who we are. Today, with the help of dramatic archaeological discoveries and groundbreaking advancements in technology and scientific understanding, we are closer than we've ever been to learning the true story. In recent decades, it has been the science of paleoanthropology that has led the investigation, helping us make sense of this controversial subject and providing us with a richer understanding of our origins. It's also sparked continued debate about key issues in human evolution. Did early humans evolve in Africa alone, or in regions throughout the world? Did Neandertals play an important role in our genetic heritage and, if so, how? Why did prehistoric humans form cooperative communities and create art? Now you can complete your own understanding of these issues in a fascinating 24-lecture series from an expert paleoanthropologist, who surveys both the questions that continue to rile the world's greatest minds in anthropology and the cutting-edge science responsible for them. The result is this expert guide to the wide-ranging debates over the most profound questions we can ask. Each lecture focuses on a single one of these questions and the sometimes surprising, sometimes fierce, and always illuminating debates surrounding them, including whether it was Africa or Asia that was more central to human origins, what prehistoric cultural groups were really like, and when humans actually reached the New World.
©2011 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2011 The Great Courses
Almost Human
Summary
A story of defiance and determination by a controversial scientist, this is Lee Berger's own take on finding Homo naledi, an all-new species on the human family tree and one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century. In 2013, Lee Berger, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, heard of a cache of bones in a hard-to-reach underground cave in South Africa. He put out a call around the world for petite collaborators - men and women small and adventurous enough to be able to squeeze through eight-inch tunnels to reach a sunless cave forty feet underground. With this team, Berger made the discovery of a lifetime: hundreds of prehistoric bones, including entire skeletons of at least 15 individuals, all perhaps two million years old. Their features combined those of known prehominids like Lucy, the famous Australopithecus, with those more human than anything ever before seen in prehistoric remains. Berger's team had discovered an all new species, and they called it Homo naledi. The cave quickly proved to be the richest prehominid site ever discovered, full of implications that shake the very foundation of how we define what makes us human. Did this species come before, during, or after the emergence of Homo sapiens on our evolutionary tree? How did the cave come to contain nothing but the remains of these individuals? Did they bury their dead? If so, they must have had a level of self-knowledge, including an awareness of death. And yet those are the very characteristics used to define what makes us human. Did an equally advanced species inhabit Earth with us, or before us? Berger does not hesitate to address all these questions. Some colleagues question Berger's interpretation of this and other finds. Here, this charismatic and visionary paleontologist counters their arguments and tells his personal story: a rich narrative about science, exploration, and what it means to be human.
©2017 Lee Berger (P)2018 Blackstone Publishing
Major Transitions in Evolution
Summary
Imagine a world without bees, butterflies, and flowering plants. That was Earth 125 million years ago. Turn back the clock 400 million years, and there were no trees. At 450 million years in the past, even the earliest insects had not yet developed. And looking back 500 million years, the land was devoid of life, which at that time flourished in a profusion of strange forms in the oceans. These and other major turning points are the amazing story of evolution. Given the broad scope of the subject, this course is taught by two professors: Anthony Martin, a paleontologist and geologist at Emory University, and John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Each is an outstanding teacher in his field, adept at making the subject interesting and accessible no matter what your background in science. In 24 lavishly illustrated lectures, you will learn about Earth’s major transitions, each of which brought forth new possibilities for life. You will study the conditions that led to the first complex cells, flying insects, flowering plants, mammals, modern humans, and many other breakthroughs. And in the process of studying the past, you will gain a powerful understanding of the present world. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2010 The Great Courses (P)2010 The Teaching Company, LLC