ABSTRACT
Paleoanthropology—the study of human origins—is and always has been a highly visible field of anthropological research. The search for our ancestors is in the forefront of scientific investigations. It is also the focus of considerable popular interest. Many people are curious about the past and are fascinated by the evolutionary path leading to modern humans. Evidence of this past is disseminated to a hungry audience in the scientific literature and in the pages of the New York Times, National Geographic, ScientificAmerican, and other popular publications. As a result, many fossils and “fossil-hunters” have gained considerable notoriety outside the discipline at large. Names like “Leakey,” “Johanson” and “Lucy” are recognizable to a wide variety of people who have never seen a human fossil nor stepped a foot outside of an urban, industrialized context.
