This text aims to provide a complete context for understanding the 65-million-year story of humankinds origins. It gathers the work of 49 internationally recognized scholars, each a leading authority writing under the guidance of a distinguished team of editors from the American Museum of Natural History. They have prepared over 800 entries, ranging from brief definitions of technical terms to in-depth, lengthy essays on broad topics such as evolutionary theory, genetics, and Palaeolithic archaeology. It should be useful to scholars scholars and readers in a variety of fields, including...