Hominin Environments in the East African Pliocene: An Assessment of the Faunal Evidence

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From the reviews: 'This book provides valuable insights into the way archaeologists attempt to unravel human history and the daunting problems they face'. William Ruddiman, EOS Vol. 89 No. 18, April 2008. 'The book delves intensively and extensively into the methodologies for analyzing faunal change using the mammalian fossil record, paleoecology. The 12 papers contributed by more than 30 authors focus on carnivores, bovids, nonhuman primates, and small mammals, and provide suggestions for future research. … The large amount of data has yielded a significant integration of information and shows how different lines of study can strengthen the understanding of complex evolutionary problems. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students through professionals.' D. Bardack, CHOICE, Vol. 45 No. 10, June, 2008. 'The new book by Bobé et al. is much more circumscribed in its aspirations and coverage. … In addition, most authors are to be congratulated for appropriate taphonomic sensitivity in their approaches to the fossil record. … is useful to the interested nonspecialist, and they benefit from the uniformly clear style of presentation throughout.' Travis Rayne Pickering, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2008. 'This tome is a timely and welcome contribution to the hominin paleoenvironmental literature … . a must-have for students and senior researchers alike. … The volume signifies an important step forward in hominin paleoenvironmental research and certainly foreshadows a promising body of work yet to come from a bright and enthusiastic group of researchers.' Katie M. Binetti, PaleoAnthropology, 2008. 'René Bobé, Zeresenay Alemseged and Anna K. Behrensmeyer present a series of papers focused on reconstructing East African Pliocene environments through a diversity of faunal assessments. … this volume is important for all vertebrate palaeoecologists, as it provides useful case studies of many of the different approaches available in reconstructing ancient environments. … Overall, this volume is well-written, well-illustrated, and provides a snapshot of palaeoecological methods currently in use. … it represents a critical resource for researchers interested in vertebrate palaeoecology and/or Plio-Pleistocene hominins.' Julien Louys, Journal of Human Evolution, Vol. 55, 2008. 'It is about a lot more than hominin environments … . this book is a necessary addition to his or her library, or if it could be used as class reading material. … The entire book makes an excellent reference for graduate students from the outlining of scales of reference in the fossil record … . Graduate seminars on mammalian paleoecology and methodologies could well use this book as the basis for in-depth discussions.' Kaye E. Reed, Journal of Mammalian Evolution, Vol. 16, 2009.