With their revolutionary discovery about human origins, a pair of maverick geologists single-handedly shook the foundations of science and philosophy. Here, for the first time, is the inside story.

For much of the twentieth century, anthropologists believed in a simple, linear picture of evolution: the human family was born in Africa and remained there until Homo erectus, a relatively advanced form of human, migrated into eastern Asia about one million years ago. All later humans, these anthropologists thought, developed through a steady modernization process from Homo erectus. But when Garniss Curtis and Carl Swisher of the Berkeley Geochronology Center applied advanced potassium/argon dating techniques to previously studied -- and incorrectly dated -- fossils in Indonesia, their findings shocked the anthropological community and drastically altered our current view of human evolution.

With lucid prose and infectious enthusiasm for the subject, the authors take us on a journey to the Indonesian island of Java, where Curtis and Swisher made two important discoveries: first, that human ancestors left the Cradle of Mankind -- the African continent -- and migrated east almost two million years ago, much earlier than anthropologists had believed, and second, that Homo erectus might have survived until as late as 27,000 years ago, suggesting that Homo erectus actually coexisted with Homo sapiens and was probably not an evolutionary precursor. Their findings not only destroy the straight line of human evolution, but also call into question the inevitability of the evolution of Homo sapiens.

Eventually, politics and a lack of funding find their way into the story, providing a realistic, if unfortunate, look at the travails that accompany scientific discovery. Swisher's and Curtis's findings are often met with skepticism, and their scientific methods are called into question. But conviction and determination lead them to conclusions that not only redefine their field but raise philosophical questions about what it means to be human.

Amazon.com Review
If you think nature is red in tooth and claw, you've never seen paleoanthropologists. Never has so much fuss been made by so many over so little actual evidence. Unlike most scientific controversies, however, those in paleoanthropology involve seriously emotional issues: nothing less than the origin and nature of humanity.

One of the most fervent controversies in human origins has been over whether human evolution occurred only in Africa (the "Out of Africa" hypothesis), or whether humans evolved on different continents concurrently (the "Multiregional" hypothesis). The bones known as "Java Man" are key for deciding between these theories, and the most important unknowns about them are their dates. Geochronologists Carl Swisher and Garniss Curtis produced the first good dates for fossil humans from Java and set the paleoanthropological community on its collective ear--some of the fossils are much older than anyone thought, others are much younger. In this book they tell their story with the aid of Roger Lewin, a widely respected science journalist and the author of Bones of Contention.

Historians of academic infighting will find Java Man a treasure trove. Rarely has the mask of science been peeled back so completely, to reveal a seething mass of egos, mistakes, lawsuits, and crude hand gestures, boiling around some real, basic questions in human evolution. It's not yet particularly conclusive, but it is certainly not dull. --Mary Ellen Curtin