What the bones tell us

by Jeffrey H. Schwartz

Jeffrey Schwartz, professor of physical anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh and research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, ranges from digs in the Negev Desert through Africa and Europe to the local coroner's office to explain how interpretations of the past are made. What counts is the data and the context in which the evidence is analyzed. Along the way the author constructs a new hominid family tree to take account of recent assessments of human evolution. The author, part of the team that recently unearthed burial urns from the ancient city of Carthage, exposes the inner workings of archeology and anthropology, illustrating what can be learned from fossils and fragments of ancient cultures and civilizations. Because every living thing on earth will have had a single, unique history, whether it be the life of an individual, of a civilization, a species, or a diverse evolutionary group, "the discovery," writes the author, "is less a matter of unearthing a