Human Evolution

John H. Langdon is Professor Emeritus of Biology and Anthropology at the University of Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. Professor Langdon has written four books, Getting it Right: The Science of human Evolution (Springer), The Human Strategy: An Evolutionary Perspective on Human Anatomy (Oxford University Press); Human Dissection for the Allied Health Sciences (Little, Brown), and Functional Morphology of the Miocene Hominoid Foot (S. Karger), and co-edited a fourth, The Natural History of Paradigms (University of Indianapolis Press). His research interests are in the field of historical demography; human biology; human evolution; functional and evolutionary morphology; history and development of paleoanthropology; evolution of human behavior; history and process of the natural sciences. Professor Langdon has a BA in anthropology from Harvard University, and MPhil and PhD in anthropology from Yale University.

Part I Introduction.- 1. The Reflection in the Mirror.- 2. Background: Evolutionary Classification and Fossil Dating.- 3. A Primate Heritage.- Part II The First Hominins.- 4. Miocene Hominoids.- 5. The Early Hominins: Australopiths.- 6. The Ecological Context of Early Hominin Evolution.- 7. Understanding Australopiths.- 8. The Evolution of Bipedality.- Part III The First Humans.- 9. The Earliest Humans in Africa.- 10. The First Technology.- 11. Diet of Early Homo.- 12. Evolution of the Brain.- 13. Leaving Africa.- Part IV The Middle Pleistocene.- 14. The Erectines of Asia.- 15. Erectines of the West.- 16. Behavior in the Middle Pleistocene.- Part V The Emergence of Modern People.- 17. Late Pleistocene Homo and the Emergence of Modern Humans.- 18. From the Middle Paleolithic to the Modern Mind.- 19. Modern Humans Disperse From Africa.- 20. Distributing Modern Peoples.- 21. Life History and Reproduction.- 22. Evolution Today and Tomorrow.