Bones of Contention

Summary

A journalistic account of paleoanthropology written for curious general readers, focused on the contested fossil evidence behind theories of human origins. Lewin investigates how personality, ambition, and theoretical commitment shape what scientists see in a skull or jawbone, treating the field as a human story as much as an empirical one. The result is a candid look at how consensus is forged—and fractured—in a discipline working with fragmentary evidence.