Making Silent Stones Speak: Human Evolution and the Dawn of Technology
In this dramatic reconstruction of the daily lives of the earliest tool-making humans, two leading anthropologists reveal how the first technologies-- stone, wood, and bone tools-- forever changed the course of human evolution.Drawing on two decades of fieldwork around the world, authors Kathy Schick and Nicholas Toth take readers on an eye-opening journey into humankind's distant past-- traveling from the savannahs of East Africa to the plains of northern China and the mountains of New Guinea-- offering a behind-the-scenes look at the discovery, excavation, and interpretation of early prehistoric sites.Based on the authors' unique mix of archaeology and practical experiments, ranging from making their own stone tools to theorizing about the origins of human intelligence, "Making Silent Stones Speak" brings the latest ideas about human evolution to life. 1. Before the Dawn -- 2. The Stone Age Considered -- 3. Dawn Breaks: The First Stone Tool Makers -- 4. Fashioning Our Future: The Making of Early Stone Tools -- 5. The Role of Rock: Uses of Early Stone Tools -- 6. The Nature and Significance of Early Stone Age Sites -- 7. The Handaxe Makers and Their Contemporaries -- 8. The Human Threshold -- 9. Brave New World
