Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity

LECTURE

Homo sapiens

—The First Humans

Christian, Maps of Time, chap. 7.

———, This Fleeting World, chap. 1.

Fagan, People of the Earth, chap. 3.

Lewin, Human Evolution.

McBrearty and Brooks, “The Revolution That Wasn’t.”

Ristvet, In the Beginning, chap. 1.

1. What are the most powerful reasons for thinking that our species
   appeared between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago in Africa?


2. What reasons are there for arguing that Neanderthals were not
   fully human?

Essential Reading

Supplementary Reading

Questions to Consider