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Cro-Magnon
- How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
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Publisher's summary
Best-selling author Brian Fagan brings early humans out of the deep freeze with his trademark mix of erudition, cutting-edge science, and vivid storytelling.
Cro-Magnon reveals human society in its infancy, facing enormous environmental challenges - including a rival species of humans, the Neanderthals. For ten millennia, Cro-Magnons lived side by side with Neanderthals, an encounter that Fagan fills with drama. Using their superior intellects and tools, these ingenious problem solvers survived harsh conditions that eventually extinguished their Neanderthal cousins.
Cro-Magnon captures the indomitable adaptability that has made Homo sapiens an unmatched success as a species. Living on a frozen continent with only the most basic tools, Ice Age humans survived and thrived.
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Full of science.
- By Jennifer90046 on 02-07-17
By: Wendy Williams
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The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
- A New History of a Lost World
- By: Steve Brusatte
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In this stunning narrative spanning more than 200 million years, Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field - discovering 10 new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork - masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy.
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"The Rise of the Scientists Who Study Dinosaurs"
- By Daniel Powell on 09-16-18
By: Steve Brusatte
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1491
- New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
- By: Charles C. Mann
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus' landing had crossed the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago; existed mainly in small nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas were, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last 30 years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong.
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Exposes Non-Academic Audience to The Debate Between Ideas of Pre-Colombian America's
- By Christopher on 01-19-17
By: Charles C. Mann
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The Statues That Walked
- Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island
- By: Terry Hunt, Carl Lipo
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island’s barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works?
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The "Mystery of Easter Island" remains raveled
- By Diane on 09-14-12
By: Terry Hunt, and others
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Ancient Bones
- Unearthing the Astonishing New Story of How We Became Human
- By: Madelaine Böhme
- Narrated by: Aimée Ayotte
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Africa has long been considered the cradle of life - where life and humans evolved - but somewhere west of Munich, Germany, paleoclimatologist and paleontologist Madelaine Böhme and her team make a discovery that is beyond anything they ever imagined: the 12-million-year-old bones of an ancient ape - Danuvius guggenmos - which makes headlines around the world and defies prevailing theories of human history and where human life began.
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Brave Attempt
- By Bill Treat on 10-15-22
By: Madelaine Böhme
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American Serengeti
- The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains
- By: Dan Flores
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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America's Great Plains once possessed one of the grandest wildlife spectacles of the world, equaled only by such places as the Serengeti, the Masai Mara, or the veld of South Africa. Pronghorn antelope, gray wolves, bison, coyotes, wild horses, and grizzly bears: less than 200 years ago these creatures existed in such abundance that John James Audubon was moved to write "it is impossible to describe or even conceive the vast multitudes of these animals".
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Could have been great, but
- By An Amazon Buyer on 08-29-18
By: Dan Flores
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Cahokia
- Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi
- By: Timothy Pauketat
- Narrated by: George Wilson
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Professor Timothy R. Pauketat illuminates the riveting discovery of the largest pre-Columbian city on U.S. soil. Once a flourishing metropolis of 20,000 people in 1050, Cahokia had rotted away by 1400. Its earthen mounds near modern-day St. Louis reveal “woodhenges” and evidence of large-scale human sacrifice.
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probably better in hard copy
- By Mary on 06-05-11
By: Timothy Pauketat
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Born in Africa
- The Quest for the Origins of Human Life
- By: Martin Meredith
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In Born in Africa, Martin Meredith follows the trail of discoveries about human origins made by scientists over the last hundred years, recounting their intense rivalry, personal feuds, and fierce controversies, as well as their feats of skill and endurance. The results have been momentous. Scientists have identified more than 20 species of extinct humans. They have firmly established Africa as the birthplace not only of humankind but also of modern humans.
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Up to date interesting
- By Simon on 02-15-12
By: Martin Meredith
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The Sediments of Time
- My Lifelong Search for the Past
- By: Meave Leakey, Samira Leakey
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Preeminent paleoanthropologist Meave Leakey brings us along on her remarkable journey to reveal the diversity of our early pre-human ancestors and how past climate change drove their evolution. She offers a fresh account of our past, as recent breakthroughs have allowed new analysis of her team’s fossil findings and vastly expanded our understanding of our ancestors. Meave’s own personal story is replete with drama, from thrilling discoveries on the shores of Lake Turkana to run-ins with armed herders and every manner of wildlife, to raising her children....
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Brilliant!
- By tess koffler on 04-07-21
By: Meave Leakey, and others
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Potentially excellent, heavily flawed
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A preeminent geneticist hunts the Neanderthal genome to answer the biggest question of them all: what does it mean to be human? What can we learn from the genes of our closest evolutionary relatives? Neanderthal Man tells the story of geneticist Svante Pbo’s mission to answer that question, beginning with the study of DNA in Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in his sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2009.
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Mammalian Bipedalism's Many Layers
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Approximately 200,000 years ago, as modern humans began to radiate out from their evolutionary birthplace in Africa, Neanderthals were already thriving in Europe - descendants of a much earlier migration of the African genus Homo. But when modern humans eventually made their way to Europe 45,000 years ago, Neanderthals suddenly vanished.
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This is Popular Science -- No Dramatic Rendering Necessary
- By Tisa Garrison on 07-01-15
By: Pat Shipman
What listeners say about Cro-Magnon
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Paul
- 08-12-10
Fact and fiction
An interesting introduction to our current state of knowledge of our distant ancestors. However, don't expect only a discussion of facts drawn from recent archaeological studies. The author adds colour to the text by speculating well beyond what we know in the areas of social structure and human/neanderthal coexistence. Sometimes this is enjoyable, sometimes it taxes credulity.
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20 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Joshua
- 08-04-10
Skipping to Part II
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought Part I was too speculative and almost comically repetitive. I'm skipping to Part II now, and thank the reviewer who suggested that. I'll update my review after I'm done.
But my gosh, hearing the reader go on about the "intricate dance of two cultures" and the "silent Neanderthal man staring at his more intelligent neighbor," over and over and over again reminded me of my time as an English major when I'd spin big papers out of a few facts/ideas that really deserved about 15 percent of the space they actually got.
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17 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Joel Mayer
- 07-22-10
Skip "Part I"
This was a decent book, but the first "part" was a waste of time. It began with an uninspiring "lit review" of human evolution. Followed by a summary of his beliefs of Neanderthal society that might have been ripped from "Clan of the Cavebear."
The second "part" redeemed the book as he gave a more compelling summary of Cro-Magnon society (obviously the focus of the book). He followed development of these societies and changes in their technology and inferred what this meant to how their society possibly operated. Wisely, the author did not claim to "know" what their society was like but made reasonable guesses.
I would skip Part I and go directly to Part II for any re-listening to this book.
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15 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Thomas
- 07-28-10
Interesting but speculative and repetitive
For the most part I enjoyed listening to this book. I was unfamiliar with the topic and thought I would give it a listen, and I feel I've learnt a fair amount about mans pre-history. However, I found great chunks of the book to be highly speculative with long story-like fantasies from the author about how he thinks daily life of the cro-magnon may have been. In other words, I think the book sacrifices some objective integrity in order to make it more easily accessible/readable.. (a mistake in my mind).
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11 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Roy
- 01-21-11
A Summary of the Evidence
I look for books that address topics about which I have little understanding. Hence, I picked up Brian Fagan's "Cro-Magnon" which presents the current knowledge concerning our stone-age ancestors. He accomplishes this by clearly telling the reader what is known, what is still unknown, and how inferences from the archeological record are drawn. Along the way he brings the reader up-to-date on carbon dating, DNA analysis and other technological tools used in the study of that record. He speculates about the lives of various of these individuals and describes their behavior in hunting, family matters, inter-group trade, language and other things. True, the narrative portions of some sections are based upon conjecture, but they are rooted in “what is known” and the descriptions help the novice visualize what life may have been like for these individuals. The reading of James Langtgon is very good.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Scott
- 07-27-10
Amazing Look at Lives of "Cave Men"
I can truly picture and wonder at the "cave-man's" cleverness, now I understand cave paintings FAR beyond the simple explanation by a professor of "sympathetic magic" with some solid theories on their meaning and purpose.
The author is also frank on the many things, besides art, we will never learn.
You'll understand as the archaeologist/writer assumes no prior knowledge.
Described are: how they hunted, tools, interactions with peers (while Neanderthals watched silently). You have permission to use the "TH" as in "think" to say "Neanderthal" despite being corrected to "NeanderTal" by the snobby as real archaeologists use the former normally.
Also, while we've heard of asteroids causing apocalypses, it was astonishing to learn vast extinctions were also caused by HUGE volcanic eruptions (The relatively recent Krakatoa volcano was a firecracker in comparison.) leading to "nuclear winter" type weather for years leading to massive extinctions.
It will answer competing theories on the Cro-Magnon origins.
You'll learn, without boredom, about the lives & progress and unique devices created by these amazing beings.
The book covers several ice age & warming trends over epochs of time. (Mild political note to any who might use that climate change info. to bolster claims that "Warming periods are common and so normal!", to which the reply would be yes, they are....over THOUSANDS of years, NOT over a single century.)
The production is terrific with regard to narration and editing.
This is a must-read as well-written non fiction gets the 5 * distinction. Lifetime learning is fun!
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Becca
- 09-03-10
too much speculation presented as fact
A lot of this book is fascinating, but he speculates an awful lot, drawing parallels to modern cultures like the Inuit and Eskimos, and doesn't clearly differentiate between what is speculation and what is fact. This casts doubt on what is presented as fact, to where I don't know how much to believe. While entertaining, this book should be read with caution. If I could get my money back for it, I would.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Eric
- 08-13-10
Good information in a slightly cheesy way.
the use of dramatization of the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon was interesting but at times it becomes kitchy in a post modern "early humans were all friends" kind of way. However teh information was excellent and well presented.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Gary
- 07-01-12
Story read like romantic fiction
The story listens as if it is a romantic fiction novel. The author gives us plenty of information on early man (and neanderthal) life. If you were to listen to the story at random parts, you would probably think the story was a romantic fiction novel. Whenever a science book reads like fiction that makes the book flow marvelously. The author will often start his elucidation on a subject matter by saying "and how do we know that", and then explains how we think we know what was said. Typical examples representative of the time period are used to make the lives of the Cro-Magnon become vibrant through today's modern eyes.
I'm a sucker for prehistory books. This one makes the subject come alive and the reader adds an extra dimension to the story telling.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Karin W.
- 09-09-10
A comprehensive overview of the Ice Age
Not just about the Cro-Magnon, this book also goes into great detail about what scientists currently know about the Neanderthal people and the current scientific knowledge regarding the climactic changes, geology, flora, and fauna of the Ice Age.
I'm an archaeology geek, didn't know much about this period, and found the topic engrossing. It's popular science writing at its best--clear, interesting, and accessible without being condescending.
The narrator is also excellent, with a very pleasant British accent and flawless pronounciation of the many French and German terms in the book, not to mention the occasional Hebrew or !Kung word.
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