The question of mankind's origin has always fascinated scientists, philosophers and laymen alike. But it remained a mystery till the second half of the nineteenth century, when T.H. Huxley and Charles Darwin first suggested a plausible link between apes and humans. Repugnant though it was for orthodox believers, the idea gradually took root through the work of palaeoanthropologists-people who search for human ancestors by studying fossil bones. Gradually, as new fossil evidence was unearthed, different pieces in the jigsaw puzzle of human origin started falling into place. Today, the picture is reasonably complete, although there still remain a few missing pieces.
From whatever has emerged so far, it is clear that mankind's journey from an ape-like creature living on trees some 8 million years ago to an intelligent creature capable of accomplishing astounding feats was not a smooth one. It was punctuated by many upheavals and dead ends. But more fascinating is the story of the handful of men and women who gave up the comforts of life to search for our distant ancestors in the hot tropical Africa and elsewhere, the story of their dogged work in the scorching sun, searching for a tooth, a piece of jaw or a fractured corner of a bone amid stone litter and shadows, with no guarantee of ever finding anything. The saga of their successes, as also failures, is no less exciting and enthralling than any detective thriller. The ingenuity of their methods for identifying a piece of jaw or a limb bone as belonging to an ape or a human-like creature, or finding out whether the creature whose fossil skull they held could speak would put even Sherlock Holmes to shame!
My own interest in human evolution dates back to no more than a few years, since I became involved in the production of a radio serial on the subject. I had to prepare some background material for the scriptwriters. But after I had collected all that was available I was astounded by the wealth of information that lay before me. There was much more than could be presented in a few episodes of a radio serial. It deserved a more permanent place. The serial was a big success, but the thought of putting it down in a book form never left me. The opportunity came in the shape of an invitation from the National Book Trust who wanted a book on the subject for their popular science series.
But writing the book turned out to be far from the cakewalk I had expected it to be. When I tried to update the data, to my utter dismay I found that new fossil finds and theories were coming up almost by the day and making quite a lot of what I had written earlier irrelevant. Revising the text by keeping pace with the new finds almost became a nightmare. Yet I had a deadline to meet. As a compromise I gave up and settled for a cutoff date July 1996. If any new fact has come up subsequently which is at variance with what I have written in the book I hope readers will pardon me.
I have received encouragement from many friends and colleagues to all of whom I am indebted. I am particularly indebted to Dr G.P. Phondke who was the main driving force behind the radio serial on human evolution and with whom I had the privilege of working for the serial. His valuable suggestions after going through the early drafts helped me a lot in preparing the final text. My friend Shankuntala Bhattacharya was kind enough to lend me her books which provided valuable reference material. I could have never finished writing the book without the constant vigil kept by Ms Manju Gupta of NBT who never tired of reminding me of the deadline (although I didn't quite stick to the original one)! I am specially thankful to Shri C.G. Raphael who keyed in the text on computer and ungrudgingly carried out whatever changes I asked for. And, of course, I cannot forget the unflinching support I got from my wife Aloka in the form of the umpteen cups of tea at odd hours which certainly helped me maintain my tempo.
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