Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
4
Although we are mere sojourners on the surface of the planet, chained to a mere point in space, enduring
but for a moment of time, the human mind is not only enabled to number worlds beyond the unassisted ken
of mortal eye, but to trace the events of indefinite Ages before the creation of our race.
—Sir Charles Lyell
Principles of Geology
And so had we been present where the forest meets the savanna one morning five million years ago, we
would have caught a glimpse of our ancestors. Still in shadow, they stood peering anxiously across the bright
panorama. It would have been easy at a distance to mistake them for a family of chimpanzees. Except that as
they started forward through the grass, they kept erect. Each of the adults held a pointed stick in one hand.
All of history was there that morning—all that we were to become and still might be.
—Marvin Harris
Our Kind
