Just this past August The Well-read Naturalist reported the publication by Greystone Books of a new English language edition of Dr. Friederike Otto’s Angry Weather, noting that it was a continuation of that publisher’s highly laudable program of bringing quality works of natural history originally published in German into English and thus greatly expanding their accessibility to a wider reading community.
This month, Greystone’s work in this commendable project takes another step forward with the publication of Ancient Bones, Unearthing the Astonishing New Story of How We Became Human. Written in German by Dr. Madelaine Böhme, Rüdiger Braun, and Florian Breier, and originally published by Heyne (an imprint of Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe GmbH) under the title Wie wir Menschen wurden, this new English language edition has been translated by Jane Billinghurst (who also produced the English language editions translations for Peter Wohlleben‘s best-selling The Mysteries of Nature trilogy).
Centering on the discovery Danuvius guggenmosi in the Allgäu region of Bavaria, and the paradigm-shifting implications this 11.6 million year old hominoid has to understanding the evolution of upright walking postures in later hominins, Ancient Bones is a compelling read for all those who like their paleoanthropology mixed with a bit of good old-fashioned detective mystery, and another feather in the cap of Greystone for their ongoing work in bringing interesting and significant works of European-published natural history into English language editions.
