Our Earliest Ancestors

by Björn Kurtén, Erik J. Friis (Translator), Viking Nyström (Illustration)

Tracing mankind's evolution from the birth of life on Earth three billion years ago to the emergence of modern human beings, this volume explains how the field of evolutionary study has been aided by research in comparative anatomy and molecular biology.

1. Humanity and Us --
2. A Long Story, Briefly Told --
3. Prosimians: Types and Collateral Branches --
4. Africa: The Original Home? --
5. "Miocene Lady" --
6. The Fork in the Road --
7. Hominids Before Homo --
8. Animals and Humans --
9. "The Ape-Man" --
10. Humans in the European Ice Age --
11. Us --
12. The Present and the Future.

Genres: Anthropology

158 pages, Hardcover

First published October 15, 1993

About the author

Björn Olof Lennartson Kurtén (1924–1988) was a distinguished vertebrate paleontologist. He belonged to the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. He was a professor in paleontology at the University of Helsinki from 1972 up to his death in 1988. He also spent a year as lecturing guest professor at Harvard University in 1971.
In Not from the Apes (1971) Kurtén argued that man's development has been separate from that of monkeys and apes for at least 35 million years, and that man did not descend from anthropoids, but rather the reverse.
He was also the author of an acclaimed series of books about modern man's encounter with Neanderthals, such as Dance of the Tiger (1978, 1980). When asked what genre these works belonged in, Kurtén coined the term paleofiction to describe his oeuvre. This genre was popularized by Jean M. Auel in her Earth's Children series of books. He received several awards for his books around popularized science, among others the Kalinga Prize from UNESCO.
In the 1980s, Kurtén also hosted a 6-part TV series about the ice age, co-produced by several Scandinavian TV channels.