Madelaine Böhme

Florian Breier

David R. Begun

A leading paleontologist discovers the missing link in human evolution. Somewhere west of Munich, Madelaine Böhme and her colleagues dig for clues to the origins of humankind. What they discover is beyond anything they imagined: the fossilized bones of Danuvius guggenmosi ignite a global media frenzy. This ancient ancestor defies our knowledge of human history--his nearly twelve-million-year-old bones were not located in Africa--the so-called birthplace of humanity--but in Europe, and his features suggest we evolved much differently than scientists once believed. In prose that reads like a gripping detective novel, Ancient Bones interweaves the story of the dig that changed everything with the fascinating answer to a previously undecided and now pressing question: How, exactly, did we become human? Placing Böhme's discovery alongside former theories of human evolution, the authors show how this remarkable find (and others in Eurasia) are forcing us to rethink the story we've been told about how we came to be, a story that has been our guiding narrative--until now.

Unearthing the Astonising New Story of How We Became Human

Ancient Bones

Rüdiger Braun

Eine kriminalistische Spurensuche nach den Ursprüngen der Menschheit - Spektakuläre Funde

Wie wir Menschen wurden

In this “fascinating forensic inquiry into human origins” (Kirkus), a renowned paleontologist takes readers behind-the-scenes of one of the most groundbreaking archaeological digs in recent history. Somewhere west of Munich, paleontologist Madelaine Böhme and her colleagues dig for clues to the origins of humankind. What they discover is beyond anything they ever imagined: the twelve-million-year-old bones of Danuvius guggenmosi make headlines around the world. This ancient ape defies prevailing theories of human history—his skeletal adaptations suggest a new common ancestor between apes and humans, one that dwelled in Europe, not Africa. Might the great apes that traveled from Africa to Europe before Danuvius’s time be the key to understanding our own origins? All this and more is explored in Ancient Bones. Using her expertise as a paleoclimatologist and paleontologist, Böhme pieces together an awe-inspiring picture of great apes that crossed land bridges from Africa to Europe millions of years ago, evolving in response to the challenging conditions they found. She also takes us behind the scenes of her research, introducing us to former theories of human evolution (complete with helpful maps and diagrams), and walks us through musty museum overflow storage where she finds forgotten fossils with yellowed labels, before taking us along to the momentous dig where she and the team unearthed Danuvius guggenmosi himself—and the incredible reverberations his discovery caused around the world. Praise for Ancient Bones: “Readable and thought-provoking. Madelaine Böhme is an iconoclast whose fossil discoveries have challenged long-standing ideas on the origins of the ancestors of apes and humans.”—Steve Brusatte, University of Edinburgh paleontologist and New York Times-bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs “Part Sherlock Holmes, part Indiana Jones, Ancient Bones is an entertaining and provocative retelling of the human evolutionary story. Böhme's hypotheses—written with enthusiasm and clarity—will be scientifically scrutinized for decades to come.” —Jeremy DeSilva, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Dartmouth College

Madelaine Böhme

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