The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack: And Other Cautionary Tales from Human Evolution

In this book, human paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall argues that a long tradition of "human exceptionalism" in paleoanthropology has distorted understanding of human evolution. Drawing on his own career—from young scientist to elder researcher—Tattersall examines the competitive world of paleoanthropology, beginning with Charles Darwin 150 years ago, continuing through the Leakey dynasty in Africa, and concluding with recent discoveries in the Caucasus. The title refers to the 1856 discovery of a very old skull cap in Germany's Neander Valley. The specimen had a brain as large as a modern human but featured a heavy low braincase with a prominent brow ridge. Scientists offered elaborate explanations to avoid accepting it as a non-direct relative, including one interpretation suggesting curved leg bones resulted from rickets and horseback riding, with chronic pain causing excessive bone development above the eye sockets. Tattersall demonstrates that the history of human evolutionary studies contains many similarly fanciful interpretations. He concludes that humans are not the perfected products of natural processes, but rather the result of substantial random chance.