Ancestors: In Search of Human Origins

This copiously illustrated companion to a PBS-TV Nova series stands on its own as an exciting, balanced survey of raging controversies in the study of human origins. Paleoanthropologist Johanson, famed for his 1974 discovery of ``Lucy,'' an Ethiopian hominid fossil, takes readers to Australia to assess significant new fossil evidence supporting the ``Multiregional Model,'' which holds that modern humans arose in various parts of the world over the last million years (as opposed to the rival ``Out of Africa,'' model which posits Africa as the single geographical source for our species). Writing in the first person in collaboration with his scientist-filmmaker wife Lenora and science writer Edgar, Johanson ( Lucy ) re-creates field expeditions and interviews scientists as he scrutinizes such questions as why hominids bothered to walk erect and whether Neanderthals coexisted (and interbred) with Homo sapiens . Newbridge Natural Science Book Club main selection; BOMC alternate; author tour. (Mar.)