The Botanic Age: Planting the Seeds of Human Evolution

How and why did humans get to be so clever and thoughtful? The beginning of the Stone Age, marked by the invention of stone tools, has traditionally dominated discussions about the origin and evolution of human intelligence. However, feminist anthropologists have long theorized that the first tools were actually nests, slings, and baskets that would not have survived in the archaeological record.

In The Botanic Age, leading evolutionary anthropologist Dean Falk argues that millions of years ...