Seven Million Years

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Review - Seven Million Years - Douglas Palmer

Where did we come from? Not a deep, philosophical question in Douglas Palmer's book, but a literal, practical one. Where did human beings come from? How did we evolve to be what we are? What happened in the last seven million years?

It's a big canvas, perhaps too big in some ways. Palmer's book is interesting, and is packed with information on the subject, but swathes of it lack real page-turning drive, and the whole lacks the sort of structure a really good book of this kind should have.

It's telling that by far the best part of the book is where Palmer is covering the life and work of the famous Louis Leakey. Suddenly, the writing, the science and the characters come alive. Those of us with just a passing awareness that Leakey was responsible for pinning down humanity's origins in Africa, gain instead a picture of a fascinating man who abandoned his wife, family and Cambridge position to return to Africa with lover and later wife Mary Nicol. Leakey comes across as someone whose excitement and passion often overwhelmed his scientific exactness. Part of the impact of the Leakey story is how often he got it wrong in the early days - and was already being feted as something of a star before he made any significant discoveries that would prove to have lasting value.

Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the section on Leakey does emphasize the weakness of some of the other parts of the book, and particularly its lack of an overall feeling of being led through the subject. The early parts of Seven Million Years particularly are strangely unengaging, while the later parts get decidedly dull. There's plenty in there. Palmer covers not only the evidence from bones but the rival "out of Africa" theories, genetic evidence, the mechanisms of dating by radioactive decay and the struggle to understand humanities position in pre-history. As such it's certainly to be recommended as a good introduction to the origins of homo sapiens - but certainly it could have been better.

Also in paperback:

Reviewed by Martin O'Brien

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