Adventures in the Bone Trade: The Race to Discover Human Ancestors in Ethiopia's Afar Depression
In the fall of 1971, Jon Kalb, a young geologist from Texas, was presented with the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to explore Ethiopia's forbidding Afar Depression, long considered a kind of hell on earth. The Afar's searing heat, sub-sea-level elevation, unreliable water supply, and treacherous windstorms had for centuries repelled explorers. But Kalb -- young, impetuous, and probably confident beyond reason -- believed he could overcome these obstacles. He would map the Afar, sample its sediments, photograph the terrain, and open up the region to fellow geologists and -- crucially -- to archeologists and anthropologists.Although it was geology that initially drew Kalb to the region, it was astounding archeological finds that became the reason to stay. The Afar yielded Lucy, the First Family, Bodo Man, the Aramis Skeleton, the Buri Skull, and some of the oldest and most extensive stone tool discoveries ever made. By the end of the decade, the area had become the source of the longest and most complete single record of hominid habitation in the world -- a span covering 4.5 million years.But the Afar yielded more: It was the site of the "bone wars" that arose from one of the great archeological hunts of all time, with cutthroat competition among rival teams of archeologists driven by ego, money, and fame. And it was the site, tragically, of a very real war. In this remarkable memoir, Kalb recounts not just the turf battles of scientists but the armed conflict that overthrew Emperor Haile Sellassie in 1974, and the subsequent revolution that steered Ethiopia toward famine, tribal warfare, invasion, and chaos. All told, this gripping memoir shows how science is shaped not just by the search for truth, but by the demands of politics, the media, money -- and the needs of the human heart.
