Humans are rather weak when compared with many other animals. We are not particular fast and have no natural weapons. Yet Homo sapiens currently number nearly 7.5 billion and are set to rise to nearly 10 billion by the middle of this century. We have influenced almost every part of the Earth system and as a consequence are changing the global environmental and evolutionary trajectory of the Earth. So how did we become the worlds apex predator and take over the planet? Fundamental to our success is our intelligence, not only individually but more importantly collectively. But why did evolution favour the brainy ape? Given the calorific cost of running our large brains, not to mention the difficulties posed for childbirth, this bizarre adaptation must have given our ancestors a considerable advantage. In this book Mark Maslin brings together the latest insights from hominin fossils and combines them with evidence of the changing landscape of the East African Rift Valley to show how all these factors led to selection pressures that favoured our ultrasocial brains. Astronomy, geology, climate, and landscape all had a part to play in making East Africa the cradle of humanity and allowing us to dominate the planet.
Author
Professor Mark Maslin FRGS, FRSA is the Director of the UCL Environment Institute and Head of the Department of Geography. He is an Executive Director of Carbon Auditors Ltd/Inc. He is science advisor to the Global Cool Foundation and Carbon Sense Ltd. He is a trustee of the charity TippingPoint and a member of Cheltenham Science Festival Advisory Committee. Maslin is a leading scientist with particular expertise in past global and regional climatic change and has publish over 100 papers in journals such as Science, Nature, and Geology. He has been awarded grants of over £28 million, twenty-six of which have been awarded by NERC. His areas of scientific expertise include causes of past and future global climate change particularly ocean circulation and gas hydrates. He also works on monitoring land carbon sinks using remote sensing and ecological models and international and national climate change policies. Professor Maslin has presented over 45 public talks over the last three years including Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds, RGS, Tate Modern, Royal Society of Medicine, British Museum, Natural History Museum, CLG, and Goldman Sachs. This year he has also join the editorial board of The Geographical Journal. He has supervised 10 Research fellows, 10 PhD students and 19 MSc students. He has also have written 7 popular books, over 25 popular articles (e.g., for New Scientist, Independent and Guardian), appeared on radio, television and been consulted regularly by the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky News. His latest popular book is the high successful Oxford University Press “Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction” the second edition was published late last year and has sold over 40,000 copies. He was the led author of the first UCL Environment Institute Policy Report, which was the basis of the Channel 4 ‘Dispatches’ program Greenwash (5/3/07). Maslin was also a co-author of the recent Lancet report ‘Managing the health effects of climate change’ and a DIFD Report on Population, Climate Change and the Millennium Development Goals. Academic Qualifications University of Cambridge, Darwin College 1989 - March 1993 PhD The study of the palaeoceanography of the N.E. Atlantic during Pleistocene (Supervisor: Sir N. J. Shackleton FRS). University of Bristol 1986-1989 BSc (Hons) in Physical Geography First Class Geology & Chemistry was also studied at honours level. Two dissertations were written an experimental hydrological investigation of the formation of the karst landscape in the mountains of Mallorca. a literature review investigating the mechanisms causing global glaciation and deglaciation. Work Experience May 2007 Head of Department of Geography Oct 2006 Professor of Physical Geography Oct 2002 Reader/Associate Professor in Palaeoclimatology at the ECRC, Department of Geography, University College London, U.K. Jan 1995 onwards Lecturer in Palaeoceanography, Palaeoclimatology and Physical Geography at the ECRC, Department of Geography, University College London, U.K. Aug 1993 to Oct 1995 Research Scientist at the Geologisch Paleontologisches Institut, University of Kiel, Germany, working ODP Leg 155 (Amazon Fan) samples.
