Marek Kohn

Arguments Ad Hominin

The Origin of Our Species

By

Allen Lane/The Penguin Press 333pp £20 order from our bookshop

When there are more significant researchers than significant specimens, and the question is what has made us human, the scholarly knives are sharper than knapped flints. Palaeoanthropology is a highly strung discipline in which strength of conviction makes up for a shortage of raw material and cherished hypotheses are constantly vulnerable to unexpected new discoveries. It makes an exciting spectator sport, notwithstanding the frustrating tendency of factions to draw opposite conclusions from the same weathered fragments of ancient bone.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • The mystery of Jack the Ripper's identity has long been agonised over. But what do we know about his victims?… ,
    • A piece of Literary Review history from way back in 1983: John Haffenden talks to the great Iris Murdoch. ,
    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    • 'The heroic male nude could not, I think, be used today to signify civic pride and glory', as Michelangelo’s 'David… ,
    • 'Munch’s later works show us a man liberated from the torments that gave rise to some of the best-known early works… ,
    Follow Us