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A Story of Us
- A New Look at Human Evolution
- Narrated by: Mike Cooper
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
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Publisher's summary
In a few decades, a torrent of new evidence and ideas about human evolution has allowed scientists to piece together a more detailed understanding of what went on thousands and even millions of years ago. We now know much more about the problems our ancestors faced, the solutions they found, and the trade-offs they made.
Our species' unique capacity for culture began to evolve millions of years ago, but it only really took off in the last few hundred thousand years. This capacity allowed our ancestors to survive and raise their difficult children during times of extreme climate chaos. Understanding how this has evolved can help us understand the cultural change and diversity that we experience today.
Lesley Newson and Peter Richerson, a husband-and-wife team based at the University of California, Davis, have spent years researching and collaborating with scholars from a wide range of disciplines to produce a deep history of humankind. In A Story of Us, they present this rich narrative and explain how the evolution of our genes relates to the evolution of our cultures. Newson and Richerson take listeners through seven stages of human evolution, beginning seven million years ago with the apes that were the ancestors of humans and today's chimps and bonobos. The story ends in the present day and offers a glimpse into the future.
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- Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The study of human evolution is advancing rapidly. Newly discovered fossil evidence is adding ever more pieces to the puzzle of our past, while revolutionary technological advances in the study of ancient DNA are completely reshaping theories of early human populations and migrations. In this Very Short Introduction, Bernard Wood traces the history of paleoanthropology from its beginnings in the 18th century to the very latest fossil finds.
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Accessible Introduction to Paleoanthropology
- By WLC on 06-13-24
By: Bernard Wood
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The Big Mysteries of Human Evolution
- By: Dr. Elen Feuerriegel, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Dr. Elen Feurriegel
- Length: 4 hrs and 28 mins
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In 10 riveting episodes, paleoanthropologist Elen Feuerriegel takes you on an unrivaled tour of the human fossil record in search of the biological and behavioral underpinnings of our very “humanness”.
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Fascinating lecture
- By M Hester on 04-15-22
By: Dr. Elen Feuerriegel, and others
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The World Before Us
- The New Science Behind Our Human Origins
- By: Tom Higham
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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A fascinating investigation of the origin of humans based on incredible new discoveries and advanced scientific technology.
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Wonderfully Accessible
- By Deborah N on 11-02-21
By: Tom Higham
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Homo Sapiens Rediscovered
- The Scientific Revolution Rewriting Our Origins
- By: Paul Pettitt
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Who are we? How do scientists define Homo sapiens, and how does our species differ from the extinct hominins that came before us? In this accessible account palaeoarchaeologist Paul Pettitt shows how the latest scientific advances, especially in genetics, are revolutionizing our understanding of human evolution. Pettitt reveals the extraordinary story of how our ancestors adapted to unforgiving and relentlessly changing climates, leading to remarkable innovations in art, technology, and society that we are only now beginning to comprehend.
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A Good Overview
- By Brandon on 02-08-23
By: Paul Pettitt
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Evolution
- The Human Odyssey
- By: Scientific American
- Narrated by: Kate Mulligan
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In this audiobook, The Human Odyssey, we explore the evolution of those characteristics that make us human. The first section looks at our family tree and why some branches survived and not others. Swings in climate are emerging as a factor in what traits succeeded and failed; meanwhile, DNA analyses show that Homo sapiens interbred with other human species, which played a key role in our survival.
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Great selection of human evolution articles (2016)
- By Sulpicia on 11-13-20
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Before the Dawn
- Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
- By: Nicholas Wade
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Just in the last three years a flood of new scientific findings, driven by revelations discovered in the human genome, has provided compelling new answers to many long-standing mysteries about our most ancient ancestors, the people who first evolved in Africa and then went on to colonize the whole world. Nicholas Wade weaves this host of news-making findings together for the first time into an intriguing new history of the human story before the dawn of civilization.
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Amazing information
- By Albert on 06-15-07
By: Nicholas Wade
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Prehistory
- Making of the Human Mind
- By: Colin Renfrew
- Narrated by: Robert Ian MacKenzie
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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A giant of archaeology, Colin Renfrew has immeasurably improved our understanding of human history. In this passionately argued work, he offers a concise summary of prehistory - human existence that predates the development of written records - while challenging the very definition of prehistory itself.
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not for the intellectually challenged
- By Anthony on 07-14-10
By: Colin Renfrew
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Oceans of Kansas
- A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea
- By: Michael J. Everhart
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Revised, updated, and expanded with the latest interpretations and fossil discoveries, the second edition of Oceans of Kansas adds new twists to the fascinating story of the vast inland sea that engulfed central North America during the Age of Dinosaurs. Giant sharks, marine reptiles called mosasaurs, pteranodons, and birds with teeth all flourished in and around these shallow waters. Their abundant and well-preserved remains were sources of great excitement in the scientific community when first discovered in the 1860s and continue to yield exciting discoveries 150 years later.
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Great introduction into the Western Interior Sea
- By Ian Compton on 12-31-22
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What Evolution Is
- By: Ernst Mayr
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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At once a spirited defense of Darwinian explanations of biology and an elegant primer on evolution for the general listener, What Evolution Is poses the questions at the heart of evolutionary theory and considers how our improved understanding of evolution has affected the viewpoints and values of modern man.
By: Ernst Mayr
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The Origin of Humankind
- By: Richard Leakey
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The Origin of Humankind is Richard Leakey's personal view of the development of Homo sapiens. At the heart of his new picture of evolution is the introduction of a heretical notion: Once the first apes walked upright, the evolution of modern humans became possible and perhaps inevitable. From this one evolutionary step comes all the other evolutionary refinements and distinctions that set the human race apart from the apes.
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A Unique Perspective on the Very Earliest Humans
- By D_Spider on 05-05-24
By: Richard Leakey
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When Life Nearly Died
- The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time
- By: Michael J. Benton
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact 65 million years ago that killed half of all species then living. It is far less widely understood that a much greater catastrophe took place at the end of the Permian period 251 million years ago: at least 90 percent of life on earth was destroyed. When Life Nearly Died documents not only what happened during this gigantic mass extinction, but also the recent renewal of the idea of catastrophism.
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Obscurity to Enlightenment - A Mystery Revealed
- By Dipam on 03-18-21
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Early Humans: Ice, Stone, and Survival
- By: Suzanne Pilaar Birch, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Suzanne Pilaar Birch
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
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In 20 captivating lectures, Professor Suzanne Pilaar Birch shares her expertise and passion for discovery as she peels back the years to expose the emergence and lives of early humans. You will learn about their environmental challenges, the methods they used to meet their basic needs, cultural development, and the fascinating advances in our own technologies that have allowed us to take their few physical remains and develop a much fuller picture.
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Terrific overview of prehistoric hominids
- By Jim Nasium on 12-25-23
By: Suzanne Pilaar Birch, and others
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Ancient Bones
- Unearthing the Astonishing New Story of How We Became Human
- By: Madelaine Böhme
- Narrated by: Aimée Ayotte
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Africa has long been considered the cradle of life - where life and humans evolved - but somewhere west of Munich, Germany, paleoclimatologist and paleontologist Madelaine Böhme and her team make a discovery that is beyond anything they ever imagined: the 12-million-year-old bones of an ancient ape - Danuvius guggenmos - which makes headlines around the world and defies prevailing theories of human history and where human life began.
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Brave Attempt
- By Bill Treat on 10-15-22
By: Madelaine Böhme
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Blueprint
- The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
- By: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Narrated by: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society.
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Many interesting thoughts
- By Jonas Blomberg Ghini on 06-01-19
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The First Americans
- In Pursuit of Archaeology's Greatest Mystery
- By: J.M. Adovasio, Jake Page
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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J. M. Adovasio has spent the last thirty years at the center of one of our most fiery scientific debates: Who were the first humans in the Americas, and how and when did they get there? At its heart, The First Americans is the story of the revolution in thinking that Adovasio and his fellow archaeologists have brought about, and the firestorm it has ignited.
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Worth a read/listen
- By Thomas Gordon on 01-16-23
By: J.M. Adovasio, and others
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The 10,000 Year Explosion
- How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution
- By: Gregory Cochran, Henry Harpending
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Resistance to malaria. Blue eyes. Lactose tolerance. What do all of these traits have in common? Every one of them has emerged in the last 10,000 years.
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what was that
- By Thomas Wachtel on 04-28-24
By: Gregory Cochran, and others
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Religion in Human Evolution
- From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age
- By: Robert N. Bellah
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 29 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution.
By: Robert N. Bellah
What listeners say about A Story of Us
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- v
- 10-29-23
Creative license taken
A mix of creative fiction (based on science) and evolution thru an anthropological lens. I found it interesting. Loved the narrator. But some may not like the fictional stories told throughout.
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- Kira Stegner
- 06-28-23
I loved it!
I’m fascinated in the development of the human species. This book was interesting and informative and I couldn’t put it down! I loved the story montages of each of the development stages! It really helped to bring each species to life, in a way, helping to illustrate a possible scenario.
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- Anonymous User
- 08-21-23
Excellent All Around
Hearing human evolution from this perspective was completely captivating, I couldn’t stop listening. The narrator was super engaging and made the whole experience all the more terrific.
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- Mateo
- 06-07-24
Educational, Thought Provoking, Entertaining
An excellent history of humanity with hisltircally accurate accounts of human life over thousands of years. Culture was thr through line, and I enjoyed every chapter.
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- Casey B.
- 07-22-22
A glimpse into the lives of our ancestors.
Brilliant story telling. A glimpse at what actual life may have been like at the various stages of our evolution. Highly recommend!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-10-23
Crap
This felt like watching the land before time. just made up bs. It also seems to be trying to convince you that the patriarchy is the best way to live. the readers voice is dull to the point of hypnosis, maybe that's the point.
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