Comments on: Book review – Otherlands: A World in the Making/2022/03/15/book-review-otherlands-a-world-in-the-making/Reviewing fascinating science books since 2017Fri, 07 Feb 2025 15:09:26 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.com/By: Book review – Cro-Magnon: The Story of the Last Ice Age People of Europe | The Inquisitive Biologist/2022/03/15/book-review-otherlands-a-world-in-the-making/comment-page-1/#comment-94807Fri, 15 Mar 2024 14:52:05 +0000/?p=17049#comment-94807[…] The organisation of the book overall is good. Holliday uses subheadings to divide each chapter into manageable and clearly signposted sections while several chapters contain maps to all the sites mentioned in the text. Two early chapters use separate boxes for technical minutiae about different European lithic industries (i.e. stone tools) and craniofacial differences between Neandertals and Cro-Magnons, giving you the option to skip this material. Even so, he goes into quite intense technical detail in places. For example, in chapter 5 he repeats an earlier principal component analysis to compare the body proportions of Neandertals and Cro-Magnons, supplemented here with additional data. This shows the latter to have more heat-adapted bodies with comparatively longer limbs and narrower trunks. Similarly, in chapter 7 he repeats an analysis of comparative brain sizes amongst hominins using encephalization quotients, here supplemented with additional data. Needless to say, it is not very common to present new or refreshed analyses of data in popular works. In chapter 8 he admits to getting into the weeds on the stratigraphy of different lithic industries in various European caves. The reason is that certain classes of stone tools, here Châtelperronian and Aurignacian, are ascribed to respectively Neandertals and Cro-Magnons. In some caves, these tools are found in alternating layers, suggesting alternating habitation by, and possibly interactions between, Neandertals and Cro-Magnons. Heated debates have flared up about whether these tool sets are indeed unique to each of these hominins, and whether the observed stratigraphy is original or the result of e.g. later erosion, burrowing animals, or even backfill of undocumented excavations jumbling everything up. In short, this is a factual book and though he includes a few fictional vignettes to add flavour, his writing is not nearly as evocative as that of for instance Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Elsa Panciroli, or Thomas Halliday. […]

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]]>By: Year list – The Inquisitive Biologist’s top 5 reads of 2022 | The Inquisitive Biologist/2022/03/15/book-review-otherlands-a-world-in-the-making/comment-page-1/#comment-71833Sat, 31 Dec 2022 12:35:54 +0000/?p=17049#comment-71833[…] This kills me. I prematurely awarded Steve Brusatte a place in my top 5 for his fantastic The Rise and Reign of the Mammals but Thomas Halliday’s debut with publisher Allen Lane, Otherlands, inched him out. The awards and praise heaped on this book are well deserved. This is a spellbinding tour of extinct worlds while its carefully crafted yet poetic reflections on evolution and deep time are a masterclass in science communication. Read more… […]

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]]>By: Jen/2022/03/15/book-review-otherlands-a-world-in-the-making/comment-page-1/#comment-61546Thu, 08 Dec 2022 22:29:02 +0000/?p=17049#comment-61546“One minor annoyance is that Halliday omits the titles of journal articles, which I normally find the most informative bit. No doubt done to save space, I cannot imagine this will bother many people.”
As a former interlibrary loan librarian I can hear the desperate cries of my colleagues…

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]]>By: Book review – From Extraterrestrials to Animal Minds: Six Myths of Evolution | The Inquisitive Biologist/2022/03/15/book-review-otherlands-a-world-in-the-making/comment-page-1/#comment-52035Sat, 17 Sep 2022 11:23:09 +0000/?p=17049#comment-52035[…] the route evolution took to get here. Several recent books discussing early mammal evolution show a younger generation of scientists be more accurate but no less poetic in their metaphors. Missing links are another interesting case, […]

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]]>By: Lucia/2022/03/15/book-review-otherlands-a-world-in-the-making/comment-page-1/#comment-51621Mon, 05 Sep 2022 07:10:05 +0000/?p=17049#comment-51621I am halfway through the book and I love it so far. But I can report that the missing titles in the reference list have bothered me as well 😉

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]]>By: Cyberkitten/2022/03/15/book-review-otherlands-a-world-in-the-making/comment-page-1/#comment-43460Thu, 17 Mar 2022 12:05:15 +0000/?p=17049#comment-43460Sounds excellent! Another book added to the ever growing Wish List. Thanks for the review.

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]]>By: inquisitivebiologist/2022/03/15/book-review-otherlands-a-world-in-the-making/comment-page-1/#comment-43377Tue, 15 Mar 2022 14:41:21 +0000/?p=17049#comment-43377In reply to evolutionarymdw.

Thanks, the book is well worth a read!

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]]>By: evolutionarymdw/2022/03/15/book-review-otherlands-a-world-in-the-making/comment-page-1/#comment-43375Tue, 15 Mar 2022 14:37:34 +0000/?p=17049#comment-43375What a beautiful review! I finally got my hands on a copy of Otherlands this week, and I can’t wait to read it.

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