Book description
Ancient relics--stone tools, bones, footprints, and even DNA--offer
many clues about our human ancestors and how they lived. At the same
time, our kinship with our human ancestors lies as much in their sense
of humor, their interactions with others, their curiosity and their
moments of wonder, as it does in the shape of their bones and teeth.
And the evolution of human behavior left no direct fossil traces.
Children of Time brings this vanished aspect of the human past
to life through Anne Weaver's scientifically- informed imagination.
The stories move through time, following the lives of long-ago
hominins through the eyes of their children. Each carefully researched
chapter is based on an actual child fossil-a baby, a five-year- old, a
young adolescent, and teenagers. The children and their families are
brought to life through illustrator Matt Celeskey's vividly rendered
paleoenvironments where they encounter saber-toothed cats, giraffids,
wild dogs, fearsome crocodiles, and primitive horses. Their adventures
invite readers to think about what it means to be human, and to
speculate on the human drama as it unfolds in many dimensions, from
social organization and technology to language, music, art, and
religious consciousness.
Anne H. Weaver has a Ph. D. in anthropology from the University of
New Mexico. She taught evolutionary anthropology at Santa Fe Community
College for many years. She is now a full-time writer living in Santa
Fe. Matt Celeskey is a natural history illustrator whose work has
appeared in numerous exhibits and publications. He is currently an
exhibit designer at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and
Science.
