Jane Olsen answers “can you tell me about sapiens?”

Falla asked this question about Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind:

can you tell me about sapiens?

Jane Olsen I am only about 20% into the book, but I am fascinated by the connections to the archaeological and anthropological content of Jean Auel's fictional E…moreI am only about 20% into the book, but I am fascinated by the connections to the archaeological and anthropological content of Jean Auel's fictional Earth Children series. I have to think that his data is not the most recent, because those books were written decades ago, and she spent many years researching. One of Harari's central pieces of data in particular, the bodies, including two children, found in Sungir graves from about 30,000 years ago, feature prominently in one story line in the book, The Mammoth Hunters, which was published in 1985. Auel also delves very heavily into the fraught coexistence of Neanderthal humans and Homo sapiens during the same period. For those who are finding the scientific material to be heavy going, I highly recommend her books, especially the first 4, which are terrific novels in addition to being chock full of good information about what life was probably like for these early humans. I also wonder whether Harari's information about the migration of humans across the land bridge from Asia to North America during the last Ice Age is still the most current understanding, because I believe archaeological evidence of human communities that predate that time has been found in various locations in the Americas, suggesting that explorers (probably from Indonesia/Polynesia) came by boat before that.(less)

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