Bones, Rocks and Stars: The Science of When Things Happened

ISBN-13: 9780230551947 / Angielski / Miękka / 2006 / 188 str.

Jonathon Gruber

Opis

Understanding how we pinpoint the past is crucial to putting the present in perspective and planning for the future. Now, for the first time, journalist and geologist Chris Turney explains to the non-specialist exactly how archaeologists, paleontologists, and geologists "tell the time." Each chapter explores one famous event or object from the past, walking readers step by step through the detective work used to determine when things happened. From the Ice Age to the pyramids, from human evolution to the Shroud of Turin, Turney reveals how written records, carbon, pollen, constellations, DNA sequencing, and more all play a part in solving the mystery of the true age of objects and events. As we struggle to manage current environmental threats and conservation troubles, we ignore or misunderstand these techniques and their results at our peril.

Recenzje

'A fabulous, entertainingly written account of the amazing science

behind calendars, dates and dating objects. Essential reading for anyone

interested in prehistory.' - Professor Tim Flannery, Director of the South Australian Museum

'A rollicking run through the story of telling the time - lively and well-researched, with many fascinating stories.' - Professor Michael Benton, author of When Life Nearly Died

'This delightful introduction successfully fuses history, prehistory and earth science. It captures the imagination from its first page, and then takes the reader on a fun and fact-filled world tour through the past.' - Professor Tim White, University of California at Berkeley, USA

'What I like best about the book: It's a scientist clearly explaining what he does for a living and why it is important, at a level that any literate person can understand. Not an easy accomplishment.' - scienceblogs.com/pharyngula

'Absorbing - will appeal to a wide audience, particularly those who got a kick out of Blink or Freakonomics.' - Publishers Weekly

'If you like detective stories, you'll love this book. With a passion that radiates from every page, geologist Chris Turney, who did the radiocarbon dating on the 'hobbit' human fossil recently discovered in Indonesia, reveals how scientific dating techniques have helped solve the biggest mysteries of all time. What really happened to the dinosaurs? How old is the universe? Why did giant kangaroos die out? When did early Homo sapiens sweep aside the Neanderthals in the Middle East? What caused the ice ages? Turney explains how trees, amino acids, carbon, luminescence, volcanic ash, stars and even pollen can all give objects or events an exact place in history. The book is easy to understand and it should satisfy the hungriest of infovores.' - New Scientist

'5/5: a book that tackles [these] issues is welcome indeed - that it succeeds so brilliantly is a wonderful surprise.' - Peter Andrews of the Natural History Museum, BBC Focus Magazine

'Well researched and covers a lot of ground in a splendidly personal style. Highly recommended' - Quaternary Australasia

'A fascinating guide to the measurement of time' - Chemistry World

'The value of Chris Turney's Bones, Rocks and Stars: The Science of When Things Happened is that it provides a concise, simple, readable introduction to the full range of dating techniques...Altogether a very useful little book.' - Current World Archaeology

Spis treści

List of Figures and Tables List of Permissions and Figure Sources Acknowledgements Introduction The Ever-changing Calendar A hero in a dark age The Forged Cloth of Turin The Pyramids and the Bear's Groin The Volcano that Shook Europe The Mandate from Heaven The Coming of the Ice The Lost Worlds And Then there was One The Hole in the Ground Towards the Limits of Time Epilogue: Time's up for Creationism Further Reading Index

O autorze

CHRIS TURNEY is a British Geologist based at the University of Exeter. He did the radiocarbon dating on the 'Hobbit' fossil of Flores, Indonesia, that hit the headlines worldwide. He has published numerous scientific papers and magazine articles and done many media interviews thanks to his infectious enthusiasm for working out what happened when. In 2007, Chris was awarded The Sir Nicholas Shackleton Medal for outstanding young Quaternary scientist for his pioneering research on past climate change and dating the past.