The Emergence of man

This issue is devoted to a question which has aroused passionate argument and debate for many years: The Origin of Man. Recent research has provided new answers to many puzzling aspects of this question. A few years ago, Unesco convened an international symposium on the subject in collaboration with the International Union for Quaternary Research. The proceedings have now been published under the title "The Origin of Homo sapiens", produced for the specialist.

For this special issue, the editors of the Unesco Courier have called upon some of the leading authorities in the field of palaeontology to trace the story of man's origins in simple language accessible to the layman. It is the editors' hope that the texts and illustrations will help to make all readers more familiar with man's past and the long road that has been travelled since the 19th century refused to believe that modern man ever had any primitive ancestors.

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