The Botanic Age

Reviews / Votes

"In The Botanic Age, Dean Falk brings together diverse lines of evidence to argue that an age of plant technologies preceded the well-known Stone Age. She makes a well-reasoned case that advanced cognition may have begun with botanical inventions long before an idea of shape was first imposed on stone. You will find this book an intriguing journey into our very beginnings." -- John Gurche, paleoartist and author of Lost Anatomies: The Evolution of the Human Form "So much has been written about human origins and how our species got so smart that it is hard to imagine anyone would have anything truly new to say about it. But in this book, Dean Falk builds upon a long career of interdisciplinary research and deep knowledge of our ape ancestry to put a fresh emphasis on the role that plants, nests, and sleep played in our long and eventful evolution." -- Michael Balter, former Paris correspondent for Science, and author of The Goddess and the Bull: Catalhoyuk - An Archaeological Journey to the Dawn of Civilization "Dean Falk combines scientific savvy with storytelling skill to foreground the place of botanic materials in the human evolutionary journey. Plant remains are rare in fossils, unlike stone objects, and hence are underestimated as sources of innovation and as influences on the emergence of human cognition and language. In 'People behind the Book' Falk interviews colleagues on their experimental findings - a rare and creative way to show how science is interdisciplinary and international." -- Adrienne Zihlman, Distinguished Emerita Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz, and coauthor of Ape Anatomy and Evolution "Dean Falk enlarges our view of our own beginnings with a compelling theory on the development of plant-based technologies long before we first fashioned stone tools. At once well-reasoned and attuned to wonder, The Botanic Age also accomplishes a rare feat - it makes good science fun to read!" -- David Lindsay, author of Madness in the Making: The Triumphant Rise and Untimely Fall of America's Show Inventors "Dean Falk 'rolls over the rocks' by explaining how the foundations of human intelligence and language were laid by our earliest ancestors manipulating plant materials long before the first stone tools were made. She shows how the Botanic Age deserves the same due as the Stone, Nuclear, or Digital Age for making the modern world. A beautifully written and insightful book that discloses the evolutionary significance of some our most mundane activities - making the bed will never be the same!" -- Steven Mithen, Professor of Early Prehistory, University of Reading, and author of The Language Puzzle: How We Talked Our Way Out of the Stone Age