The Driving Forces Of Human Evolution - A Reading List

The following is a selection of readings on the key events and circumstances that have influenced the origin and evolution of Homo sapiens.  It is an incomplete and non-comprehensive list.  However, it nevertheless covers many of the topics having to do with the emergence of the human lineage from mammalian primate origins, and that distinguish the evolutionary history of our species in terms of our social and cultural abilities and material and technological achievements.  I will be adding to it from time to time and drawing from it while writing my book From the Unknown Into Uncertainty:  The Origin, Evolution and Future of Humankind.  I hope you find the readings useful and I welcome any comments you may have on them.

• Earliest Porotic Hyperostosis in 1.5 Million-Year-Old Hominin, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, PLoS ONE 7(10), October 3, 2012
• Anthropologist Finds Evidence of Hominin Eating Meat 1.5 Million Years Ago: Eating Meat May Have "Made Us Human," ScienceDaily, October 3, 2012
• Early Humans Began Eating Meat Earlier Than Thought, ScienceDaily, October 3, 2012
• Subtle Shifts, Not Major Sweeps, Drove Human Evolution
• Adaptation Plays Significant Role In Human Evolution
• Evolution Rewritten, Again And Again
• Global Warming Could Be Reversing A Trend That Led To Bigger Human Brains
• The Descent of Man? (Are we still evolving?)
• New Views of How Humans Moved Away From Apes
• The Mirage of a Space Between Nature and Nurture by Evelyn Fox Keller, reviewed by Richard C. Lewontin, The New York Review of Books, May 26, 2011
• Teeth of Human Ancestors Hold Clues to Their Family Life by Nicolas Wade, The New York Times, SCIENCE, June 1, 2011
• Cutting Edge Training Developed the Human Brain 80,000 Years Ago, ScienceDaily, Science News, June 22, 2011
• Stone Age Humans Needed More Brain Power to Make Big Leap in Tool Design, ScienceDaily, Science News, November 4, 2010
• Sediba Hominid Skull Hints At Later Brain Evolution, ScienceDaily, September 8, 2011
• Human Brain Evolution, New Insight Through X-rays: Experiment Reveals Brain Shape of an Early Human Ancestor, ScienceDaily, September 9, 2011
• Brain Images Show Similarities and Differences In Thoughts of Chimps and Humans, ScienceDaily, October 16, 2007
• Language Feature Unique to Human Brain Identified, ScienceDaily, March 24, 2008
• Chimps May Have a "Language-Ready" Brain, ScienceDaily, February 29, 2008
• Interaction is Critical for the Evolution of the Language, ScienceDaily, July 5, 2011
• High Population Densities Trigger Cultural Explosions, ScienceDaily, Science News, June 5, 2009
• Modern Humans Emerged Far Earlier Than Previously Thought, Fossils From China Suggest, ScienceDaily, Science News, October 28, 2010
• The Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukuyama (2011) reviewed by Adam Kirsch, City Journal, Spring 2011, Vol. 21, No. 2
• The Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukyyama (2011)
• The Believing Brain:  From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies - How We Consruct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths by Michael Shermer reviewed by Ronald Bailey, The Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2011
• 6 Million Years of Savannah, PhysOrg, August 3, 2011.  See also Science Daily report on same research.
• Charting Brain Growth in Humans and Chimps, The New York Times, Science, August 12, 2011
• Team Claims It Has Found Oldest Fossils, The New York Times, Environment, August 21, 2011
• Born, and Evolved, to Run, The New York Times, Science, August 22, 2011
• The Evolution of the Human Head by Daniel E. Lieberman (2011)
• Earliest Signs of Advanced Tools Found, The New York Times, Science, August 31, 2011
• Exciting Stone Tool Find in Kenya, BBC, September 1, 2011
• Evolution and Risky Decisions by Clark Barrett and Laurence Fiddick, Trends in the Cognitive Sciences, 1999
• What Defines a Meme?, Smithsonian.com, May 2011
• Female Orgasm Remains an Evolutionary Mystery, Wired Science, September 6, 2011
• Top 10 Mysteries of the First Humans, Live Science, February 22, 2011
• 8 Human-Like Behaviors of Primates, Live Science, July 29, 2011
• How Many Leaves on the Tree of Life?, The New York Times, Opinion Pages, September 5, 2011
• How Many Species? A Study Says 8.7 Million Species, but It's Tricky, The New York Times, Science, August 23, 2011:
• "The Sugary Secret of Self-Control" by Steven Pinker, a review of the book Willpower:  Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney (2011)
• Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead by Paul Raskin, et al., Stockholm Environment Insitute - Global Scenario Group, 2002
• The Century Ahead: Searching for Sustainability by Paul D. Raskin, et al., Sustainability, August 20, 2010
• Evolution of Narcissism:  Why We're Overconfident and Why It Works by Christine Dell'Amore, National Geographic, September 14, 2011
• How Life Arose on Earth, and How a Singularity Might Bring It Down by George Musser, Scientific American, September 23, 2011
• "The Mystic Chords of Violence's Memory" by Michael Shermer, eSkeptic, a review of The Better Angels of Our Nature:  Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker (2011), September 27, 2011
• "Twilight of Violence, an Interview with Steven Pinker" by Sam Harris, The Blog, regarding The Better Angels of Our Nature:  Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker (2011), October 3, 2011
• "Is Violence History?" by Peter Singer, The New York Times, Sunday Book Review, October 6, 2011, a review of The Better Angels of Our Nature:  Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker (2011)
• "The Origins of Religion, Beginning with the Big Bang" by Alan Wolfe, The New York Times, September 30, 2011, a review of the book Religion in Evolution:  From the Neolithic to the Axial Age by Robert N. Bellah (2011)
• "Did Human Pregnancy Evolve Because of an Infection?" by Amanda Shaffer, Slate, September 30, 2011
• Innovation Starvation by Neal Stephenson, World Policy Institute, Fall 2011
• US Intelligence Unit Aims to Build a "Data Eye in the Sky" by John Markoff, The New York Times, Science, October 10, 2011
• Sexual selection by Sugar Molecule Helped Determine Human Origins, Say Researchers, Science Daily, October 11, 2011
• Climate Fluctuations Drove Key Events in Human Evolution, Researchers Find, Science Daily, September 26, 2011
• Destiny of Species:  Have we sidetracked evolution? by Faye Flam, philly.com, October 10, 2011
• How Africa Became The Cradle of Humankind by Erin Wayman, National Geographic, October 17, 2011
• The DNA of Human Evolution by Katie Pollard, PBS NOVA, November 30, 2009
• The Evolution of Motherhood by Sally Hrdy, PBS NOVA, October 26, 2009
• The Adaptable Human by Rick Potts, PBS NOVA, October 26, 2009
• End of the Big Beasts (North American 13,000BP) by Peter Tyson, PBS NOVA, March 1, 2009
• First Primates by Mary T. Silcox, PBS NOVA, July 15, 2008
• How Bipedalism Arose by Donald Johanson, PBS NOVA, October 1, 2006
• Origins of Bipedalism by Rima Chaddha, PBS NOVA, October 1, 2006
• The Dinosaurs Were Not Alone by Kate Hudec, PBS NOVA, February 25, 1997
• Timing Is Everything by Joe Levine, PBS NOVA, January 1, 1996
• New Phylum Sheds Light on Ancestors of Animals, Humans, Science Daily, November 3, 2006
• New Study Finds First Links Between Genes And Moral Judgments, Georgetown University, October 5, 2011
• Japanese Scientist Unveils 'Thinking' Robot, Psyorg.com, October 11, 2011
• The Architecture of Motivation by Leda Cosmides, Edge, October 5, 2011
• 'A Toad-Eat-Toad World,' and Other Tales of Animal Cannibals by Natalie Angier, The New York Times, Science, October 31, 2011
• Google's Lab Of Wildest Dreams, The New York Times, Technology, November 13, 2011
• Biology's Big Bang Had A Long Fuse by Susan Milieus, Sciencenews.org, December 3, 2011
• Cooking May Have Driven Human Evolution, Smithsonian.com, December 1, 2011
• Our Animals, Ourselves by Justin E.H. Smith, The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 27, 2011
• Spooky Action at a Distance by Brian Greene, NOVA PBS, September 22, 2011
• Top 10 Mysteries of the First Humans, Charles Q. Choi, Live Science, February 22, 2011
• The Case of the Missing Polygamists by Eric Michael Johnson, Scientific American, The Primate Diaries, January 6, 2012
• Survival's Ick Factor by James Gorman, The New York Times, January 23, 2011
• The False Allure of Group Selection by Steven Pinker, Edge, June 18, 2012