Written by one of the world's foremost paleontologists, Prehistoric Mammals gives children a rare glimpse at a world gone by in a stunningly illustrated, incredibly comprehensive reference book.

    Children will read "news reports" including a weather forecast from 320 million years ago and an emergency broadcast about the swift extinction that would end the Permian period. As kids peruse Bonner’s innovative combination of narrative text, engaging illustrations, hilarious cartoons, maps, charts, and time lines, they will gather lots of valuable scientific information about the amazing creatures that ruled the Earth before the dinosaurs.

    Big Mama, who used a tree branch to escape from a zoo in Holland, is found sipping chocolate milk at a local restaurant. Nandy, a 50,000-year-old skeleton surrounded by flower pollen inIraq, casts doubt on the beastly reputation of an early hominid. Found frozen in the Alps, �tzi reveals what people in Europe ate 5,000 years ago. Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba, a chimpanzee, a Neandertal, and the Iceman are just some of the characters who make up The Early Human World.Peter Robertshaw and Jill Rubalcaba tell the story of early human life using an incredible variety of primary sources: 3.5-million-year-old footprints preserved by a volcano provide evidence of our ancestors' walking on two legs. Stone flakes fashioned 2 million years ago prove early hominids usedtools. Bears, lions, and rhinoceroses painted in a cave 30,000 years ago reveal our ancestors' artistic side. An 8,500-year-old dog grave shows the extraordinarily long history of man's best friend. This evidence helps archaeologists decipher not just how we came to be the Homo sapiens we are today, but also what life may have been like for our earliest ancestors. The first Australians encountered freakishly gigantic beasts: kangaroos as big as houses and tortoises the size of cars. The Sahara Desert was once a fertile land, supporting herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. The Early Human Worldtakes readers to sites around the world as archaeologists piece together the clues to our past.

    After establishing when, where, and most importantly why good riding began, Drews goes on to show how riding raiders terrorized the civilized world in the seventh century BC, and how central cavalry was to the success of the Median and Persian empires.Drawing on archaeological, iconographic and textual evidence, this is the first book devoted to the question of when horseback riders became important in combat. Comprehensively illustrated, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of civilization in Eurasia, and the development of man's military relationship with the horse.

    But what exactly are the tensions between evolution and religious faith in the area of human morality? Evolution and Ethics examines the burning questions of human morality from the standpoint of Christian thought and contemporary biology, asking where the two perspectives diverge and where they may complement one another.Representing a significant dialogue between world-class scientists, philosophers, and theologians, this volume explores the central features of biological and religious accounts of human morality, introducing the leading theories and locating the key points of contention. Central to these discussions are the questions of whether human actions are ever genuinely selfless, whether there is something in the moral life that transcends biological function, and whether one can sensibly speak of an overall purpose to the course of evolution.Certain to engage scholars, students, and general readers alike, Evolution and Ethics offers a balanced, levelheaded, constructive approach to an often divisive debate.Contributors: "Larry ArnhartChristopher BoehmCraig A. BoydRobert BoydMichael J. ChapmanPhilip ClaytonLoren HaarsmaJohn HareS. Mark HeimDavid C. LahtiThomas Jay OordGregory R. PetersonJoseph PoulshockPeter J. RichersonPhilip A. RolnickHolmes Rolston IIIMichael RuseJeffrey SchlossRené van Woudenberg"

    Initial excavations at the tell of Ras Shamra by Rene Dussaud and Claude Schaeffer brought to light impressive architectural remains, numerous artifacts, and tablets written in cuneiform (both alphabetic and syllabic), and the excavators soon were able to identify the site as the ancient city of Ugarit. Much of the material remains came to be dated to the end of the Late Bronze Age, from the 14th century through the 12th century B.C.E., and the religious, economic, and mythological texts from that era have had a major effect on our understanding of the history of the late 2nd millennium. However, by that time the site had already seen more than 6,000 years of occupation, and the data from Ras Shamra-Ugarit thus have become important as a reference point for the early history of the Near East along the Levantine coast and the eastern Mediterranean.In this volume, Marguerite Yon, the principal investigator since the early 1970s on behalf of the French archaeological team, brings us up to date on the 70-year-long excavation of the site. During the past 25 years, much of our understanding of the site itself has changed, due to new excavations, reexcavation, and reinterpretation of prior excavations. This volume is the authoritative latest word on the data from the site and their meaning for our understanding of the importance of ancient Ugarit.Heavily illustrated, including many black-and-white and color photographs.

    This text presents an overview of the archaeology of the Jomon Period between 10,000 and 300 BC within the context of more recent complex hunter-gatherer societies. It bridges the gap between academic traditions in Japanese and Anglo-American archaeology and represents an invaluable source of reflection on the development of human complexity.