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Cro-Magnon
- How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
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Publisher's summary
Best-selling author Brian Fagan brings early humans out of the deep freeze with his trademark mix of erudition, cutting-edge science, and vivid storytelling.
Cro-Magnon reveals human society in its infancy, facing enormous environmental challenges - including a rival species of humans, the Neanderthals. For ten millennia, Cro-Magnons lived side by side with Neanderthals, an encounter that Fagan fills with drama. Using their superior intellects and tools, these ingenious problem solvers survived harsh conditions that eventually extinguished their Neanderthal cousins.
Cro-Magnon captures the indomitable adaptability that has made Homo sapiens an unmatched success as a species. Living on a frozen continent with only the most basic tools, Ice Age humans survived and thrived.
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Full of science.
- By Jennifer90046 on 02-07-17
By: Wendy Williams
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The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
- A New History of a Lost World
- By: Steve Brusatte
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In this stunning narrative spanning more than 200 million years, Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field - discovering 10 new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork - masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy.
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"The Rise of the Scientists Who Study Dinosaurs"
- By Daniel Powell on 09-16-18
By: Steve Brusatte
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1491
- New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
- By: Charles C. Mann
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus' landing had crossed the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago; existed mainly in small nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas were, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last 30 years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong.
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Exposes Non-Academic Audience to The Debate Between Ideas of Pre-Colombian America's
- By Christopher on 01-19-17
By: Charles C. Mann
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The Statues That Walked
- Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island
- By: Terry Hunt, Carl Lipo
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island’s barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works?
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The "Mystery of Easter Island" remains raveled
- By Diane on 09-14-12
By: Terry Hunt, 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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American Serengeti
- The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains
- By: Dan Flores
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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America's Great Plains once possessed one of the grandest wildlife spectacles of the world, equaled only by such places as the Serengeti, the Masai Mara, or the veld of South Africa. Pronghorn antelope, gray wolves, bison, coyotes, wild horses, and grizzly bears: less than 200 years ago these creatures existed in such abundance that John James Audubon was moved to write "it is impossible to describe or even conceive the vast multitudes of these animals".
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Could have been great, but
- By An Amazon Buyer on 08-29-18
By: Dan Flores
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Cahokia
- Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi
- By: Timothy Pauketat
- Narrated by: George Wilson
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Professor Timothy R. Pauketat illuminates the riveting discovery of the largest pre-Columbian city on U.S. soil. Once a flourishing metropolis of 20,000 people in 1050, Cahokia had rotted away by 1400. Its earthen mounds near modern-day St. Louis reveal “woodhenges” and evidence of large-scale human sacrifice.
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probably better in hard copy
- By Mary on 06-05-11
By: Timothy Pauketat
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Born in Africa
- The Quest for the Origins of Human Life
- By: Martin Meredith
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In Born in Africa, Martin Meredith follows the trail of discoveries about human origins made by scientists over the last hundred years, recounting their intense rivalry, personal feuds, and fierce controversies, as well as their feats of skill and endurance. The results have been momentous. Scientists have identified more than 20 species of extinct humans. They have firmly established Africa as the birthplace not only of humankind but also of modern humans.
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A Brief History of Paleoanthropology
- By Jeff Harris on 05-06-13
By: Martin Meredith
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The Sediments of Time
- My Lifelong Search for the Past
- By: Meave Leakey, Samira Leakey
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Preeminent paleoanthropologist Meave Leakey brings us along on her remarkable journey to reveal the diversity of our early pre-human ancestors and how past climate change drove their evolution. She offers a fresh account of our past, as recent breakthroughs have allowed new analysis of her team’s fossil findings and vastly expanded our understanding of our ancestors. Meave’s own personal story is replete with drama, from thrilling discoveries on the shores of Lake Turkana to run-ins with armed herders and every manner of wildlife, to raising her children....
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Brilliant!
- By tess koffler on 04-07-21
By: Meave Leakey, and others
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The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World
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Look beyond the abstract dates and figures, kings and queens, and battles and wars that make up so many historical accounts. Over the course of 48 richly detailed lectures, Professor Garland covers the breadth and depth of human history from the perspective of the so-called ordinary people, from its earliest beginnings through the Middle Ages.
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Tantalizing time trip
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Major Transitions in Evolution
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Imagine a world without bees, butterflies, and flowering plants. That was Earth 125 million years ago. Turn back the clock 400 million years, and there were no trees. At 450 million years in the past, even the earliest insects had not yet developed. And looking back 500 million years, the land was devoid of life, which at that time flourished in a profusion of strange forms in the oceans. These and other major turning points are the amazing story of evolution.
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Why People drop out of science
- By Trebla on 04-24-19
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What listeners say about Cro-Magnon
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Blake
- 06-10-13
Not the greatest, but held my attention
A neat portrayal of the early days of humans and what our day to day lives could have been like. I learned a lot about early humans, Neanderthals, and some of the related subspecies. The comparisons between Cro Magnons and Neanderthals were particularly interesting to me. I'm really into this topic, so I devour whatever I can get. A better book I read on the same general topic recently was Last Ape Standing by Chip Walter, but unfortunately no audio version of that book is available yet. Some reviewers have griped about the amount of speculation that is nessesary for Cro Magnon to have the feel of a collection of short stories. I enjoyed the format myself, and understand that the speculation is based in science. Speculation allows for a better mental image of what things must have been like back then. The narration was decent. I've heard worse, I've heard better.
If you're a junky for this kind of stuff like I am, you'll find this book to be worthwhile, albeit not amazing. If you're just a little curious about the subject, but haven't read much on it, I would say that you might enjoy some others more.
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Overall
- Thomas
- 07-28-10
Interesting but speculative and repetitive
For the most part I enjoyed listening to this book. I was unfamiliar with the topic and thought I would give it a listen, and I feel I've learnt a fair amount about mans pre-history. However, I found great chunks of the book to be highly speculative with long story-like fantasies from the author about how he thinks daily life of the cro-magnon may have been. In other words, I think the book sacrifices some objective integrity in order to make it more easily accessible/readable.. (a mistake in my mind).
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11 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Roy
- 01-21-11
A Summary of the Evidence
I look for books that address topics about which I have little understanding. Hence, I picked up Brian Fagan's "Cro-Magnon" which presents the current knowledge concerning our stone-age ancestors. He accomplishes this by clearly telling the reader what is known, what is still unknown, and how inferences from the archeological record are drawn. Along the way he brings the reader up-to-date on carbon dating, DNA analysis and other technological tools used in the study of that record. He speculates about the lives of various of these individuals and describes their behavior in hunting, family matters, inter-group trade, language and other things. True, the narrative portions of some sections are based upon conjecture, but they are rooted in “what is known” and the descriptions help the novice visualize what life may have been like for these individuals. The reading of James Langtgon is very good.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Eric
- 08-13-10
Good information in a slightly cheesy way.
the use of dramatization of the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon was interesting but at times it becomes kitchy in a post modern "early humans were all friends" kind of way. However teh information was excellent and well presented.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Debra M. Givin
- 01-25-15
interesting but repetitive
I like to imagine what life was like for early humans. This book does allow the reader to do so while taking considerable care to back the imagery with agreed upon facts. It becomes a bit tedious with all measures cited in metric and non-metric units and vast spans of time described from multiple anchor points ie from the present, BC, from the last glacial maxima etc.
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Overall
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Those fascinating chroma one
Narration: clear. Deeper voice more suitable for subject matter. Comfortably paced.
Content: informative but could be better organized and shortened. A lot of redundancy.
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- Katie T
- 07-06-24
Brought history to life.
Somewhat poetic license but quite plausible stories to explain evolutionary changes in our ancient ancestors.
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Overall
- Paul
- 08-12-10
Fact and fiction
An interesting introduction to our current state of knowledge of our distant ancestors. However, don't expect only a discussion of facts drawn from recent archaeological studies. The author adds colour to the text by speculating well beyond what we know in the areas of social structure and human/neanderthal coexistence. Sometimes this is enjoyable, sometimes it taxes credulity.
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20 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Craig
- 08-04-10
Hmmmm!
A better title would have been more descriptive of the book and the author's premise. Perhaps it should be titled Neaderthal Man since that is what the book is essentially about.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Joel D Offenberg
- 08-23-10
Interesting pre-history, well-delivered
It's been over a decade since I last paid much attention to the story of the Neanderthal / Cro-Magnon era of pre-history. Brian Fagan's book filled in the gaps in my knowledge and delivered an excellent history.
Although the book is entitled "Cro-Magnon," the first part (almost the first half, really) tells the story of the Neanderthals and what we know about the fate of the Neanderthals when anatomically modern humans arrived. This is a very interesting puzzle and it is framed well and told effectively. The second part of the book goes into modern humans' struggle through Ice Ages, super-volcanic eruptions and more.
Yes, the subject (paleo-anthropology) is somewhat on the dry side, but the author livens it up pretty well.
James Langton's reading is quite good, except for one point that irritated the heck out of me: I've always heard that the proper pronunciation of Neanderthal is "Neandertal," but Langton pronounced the "th" like in "theta."
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