I was very interested to see this news item about the discovery of a fossil skeleton in Africa of one of our earliest ancestors, clearly not a chimp but older than the famous human skeleton of Lucy which was found in the 1970s. I was particularly interested by this story, as I've just read Chris Stringer's Homo Britanicus: The incredible story of human life in the British Isles. The book was fascinating and engagingly written. It was totally absorbing to think about the British Isles as a kind of tropical paradise with lions and elephants wandering through Kent. Some how it's easier to imagine an ice age Britain as a desolate tundra or stark ice field. I was particularly intrigued by the fact that at some points in the distant past the British Isles were covered in lush forests and many animals but no humans although there were plenty of humans in mainland Europe. If I had a time machine I'd go back to that deserted Britain of virgin forest and wild creatures. True paradise.
I'd like to read Stringers book The Complete World of Human Evolution as well particularly in light of this new find in Ethiopia.
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