Winner of the Howell Book Prize from the American Anthropological Association and named One of the Best Science Books of 2021 by Science News
“DeSilva takes us on a brilliant, fun, and scientifically deep stroll through history, anatomy, and evolution, in order to illustrate the powerful story of how a particular mode of movement helped make us one of the most wonderful, dangerous and fascinating species on Earth.”—Agustín Fuentes, Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University and author of Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being
“Breezy popular science at its best. . . . Makes a compelling case overall.”—Science News
Humans are the only mammals to walk on two rather than four legs—a locomotion known as bipedalism. But why and how, exactly, did we take our first steps? And at what cost? In First Steps, paleoanthropologist Jeremy DeSilva explores how unusual and extraordinary this seemingly everyday ability is. A seven-million-year journey to the very origins of the human lineage, First Steps describes upright walking as a gateway to many of the other attributes that make us human—from our technological abilities and thirst for exploration to our use of language—and how it may have laid the foundation for our species’ traits of compassion, empathy, and altruism. Moving from developmental psychology labs to ancient fossil sites throughout Africa and Eurasia, DeSilva brings to life our adventure walking on two legs.
Delving deeply into the story of our past and the new discoveries rewriting our understanding of human evolution, First Steps examines how walking upright helped us rise above all other species on this planet.