The Cambridge Dictionary of Human Biology and Evolution is an invaluable reference tool for anyone with an interest in human biology or evolution. It includes terms on anatomy and physiology as well as physical anthropology and primatology, two subjects often not found in non‐clinical human biology dictionaries.
This Dictionary kicks off with the usual preface and acknowledgments but then has over 1,000 word roots which are very useful, e.g. derm: – skin and tych: – chance. The dictionary proper has entries for over 13,000 terms, specimens, sites and names, all described in simple language, from A.n, which is Oakley's dating series, to Zygotene, a stage in meiosis (cell division). It includes an inventory of archaeological sites and the best‐known hominid specimens excavated from them along with up‐to‐date terms such as genomics. Each entry has other terms cross‐referenced by the use of bold text, and see referencing is used at the end of the entry, e.g. Gause's hypothesis or law; see competitive principle. Aka exclusion principle.
All three authors are from California – the first two from California State University at Long Beach and the third (M. Patricia Kersting) from the Audio‐Digest Foundation. They selected terms by trawling through major textbooks and best‐selling or classic works on the subjects. These were then ranked and the 13,000 terms chosen. The 1,000 most common terms from these publications are preceded by the symbol ‡ – quite a useful indicator.
Short biographies are included, e.g. Charles Darwin (as would be expected) and J.S. Weiner – who will be remembered for work on the Piltdown hoax. Tables are also scattered through the text expanding on some entries. For instance, the entry on Sterkfontein Valley (Cradle of Mankind) has only a small paragraph, but there are two tables listing some of the fossil hominids found at the site. At the end of the book are appendices packed with information including taxonomy for extinct, recent and extant primates. The extant primates appendix is a useful table with habitat, mass, hair description, and colouration along with range and natural history. The other seven appendices cover geological and oxygen isotope chronologies, illustrations of landmarks, bones and muscles, hominoid phylogeny along with a geological time scale, event timeline for evolution and the Greek alphabet.
This book would be useful in most academic libraries; for readers with little knowledge of these subjects it usefully defines core terms used in human ecology and evolution.
