Put ‘The First Human’ on your reading list

For at least a century, scholars have sifted through the dust of our past in an effort to close in on both the time and place where the human family was born.

Charles Darwin triggered the search with his landmark work: “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,” published in 1859. Although the book was brutally attacked because it did not agree with the biblical account of creation, Darwin built a credible case that raised evolution from a hypothesis to a verifiable theory.

Award-winning writer Ann Gibbons is convinced that the earliest humans to inhabit the Earth probably lived in Africa’s Garden of Eden, sometime between 5 million and 8 million years ago. With a novelist’s skill, Gibbons’ new book re-creates the exciting race to find the so-called missing link that might connect humans and apes. Hers is a story that is set against the backdrop of ambitious, adventurous fossil hunters who are involved in one of the most important quests ever.

Gibbons introduces readers to a colorful cast of characters, including Tim White, the irreverent and brilliant Californian whose team discovered the partial skeleton of a primate that lived more than 4.4 million years ago in Ethiopia. She also cites the findings of French paleontologist Michael Brunet, a man well-known for his work in remote and hostile locations. Brunet stunned the world of science several years ago when he announced that he had found a skull that pushes the beginning of humankind back even further, perhaps by as much as 7 million years.

“The First Human” is a fascinating book marked by meticulous research and vivid first-person reporting. This is scientific reporting at its best by a writer who is at the top of her game.

•Books reviewed in this column are available online or at your local bookstore.