Simple Book on Human Anthropology

[Sandra Bachan]

Hello,

Apart from an interest in Quantum Physics, would also like to know more about Human Anthropology.

As a kid, I was glued to a 3-part documentary (I think it was PBS) on Human migration out of Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago. At the time, our family has a single Television set, so my parents also watched, and remarked how some scenes, or rather how scenes of ancient Human life resembled scenes from ancient mythology.

News about archeologist findings of vibrant civilizations 4,000 years ago are so facinating! I wish I could find the article, it was rather big, about a year ago. This cosmopolitan civilization was West of China, North of India, East of Central Asia and archeaologists theorized that these people were from different parts of the world - similar to the United States where the populations are diverse.

Also, learning about human migrations, as explaned in this University of Texas website are so facinating

Can you recommend any simple books?

[Ulf Dittmer]

I found Jared Diamond's books Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse to be fascinating. They both cover the last 500 to 1000 years of human evolution, so may be about more recent events than you're interested in, but still illuminating. The former has attracted some criticisms, but I think the main points it makes are valid. The latter analyzes events as recent as the 1990s, and lends itself to extrapolations into the future - fascinating stuff!

[Sandra Bachan]

Ulf Dittmer wrote:
The latter analyzes events as recent as the 1990s, and lends itself to extrapolations into the future - fascinating stuff!

Now that would be interesting. One of the reasons I'm so facinated with human anthropology and history in general is because things tend to repeat themselves.

[John Smith]

Sandra Bachan wrote:Hello,
Apart from an interest in Quantum Physics, would also like to know more about Human Anthropology.
Can you recommend any simple books?

There is no such thing as "non-human" anthropology. Here is my recommendation:
http://www.amazon.com/Lila-Inquiry-Morals-Robert-Pirsig/dp/0553299611/

[Sandra Bachan]

John Smith wrote:
There is no such thing as "non-human" anthropology. Here is my recommendation:
http://www.amazon.com/Lila-Inquiry-Morals-Robert-Pirsig/dp/0553299611/

I like the premise of the book. Many times I question what I hear and see on a regular basis.

[Sandra Bachan]

Finally, I found the link to the story I was talking about - Tarim Basin and the mummies they found! These people migrated Westwards and this website reconstructs how they would have looked in 2000 BC - it shows Western features.

By the way, here is another fantastic website that explains this, European Heritage Library