Mumbles, Musings and Misadventures
Last Ape Standing Dispatch #4: South Africa, Making for Camp, and the Earliest Symbols
Christopher Henshilwood is talking about the best way to keep the baboons under control. He is the scientist in charge of this excursion to the coast of Africa, and one of the top archeologists in the study of prehistoric life. He stands 6 ft. 5 inches, with long, stilt-like legs that carry a slender, rectangular frame in long strides wherever he goes. […]
Last Ape Standing Dispatch #3: Cape Town and Beyond
I packed up my bags in my very nice central Cape Town hotel room, threw them in my rented VW and began to navigate my way, warily, and on the wrong side of the road (to me at least), out of the city. […]
Last Ape Standing Dispatch #2: Flying to Africa
A drawing of the great Colossus of Rhodes. This is MUCH better. Here, in row 38 F on KLM's very comfy 777-200 jetliner, I am a happy man. Unlike Delta's flying sardine can, I can write! I can stretch my frame, recline and sleep, which I have been doing, peacefully, I think (was I snoring?) for the past 4 hours. (Travel tip -- take 3 grams of melatonin [...]
Last Ape Standing Dispatch #1: Amsterdam
Here I sit in Amsterdam's Schipol Airport. It was here in this port city that the Great Age of Discovery began 500 years ago. That's when the Netherlands and the powerful Dutch East and West India Companies undertook to build their planet-wide trading empire. It's ships sailed the globe and controlled trade from Europe to Indonesia and Japan in the east to the new world (including New York - then [...]
Dispatches From A Last Ape Standing: Introduction
This week I depart, a Last Ape Standing, on assignment for the National Geographic Magazine for South Africa, then later London and Oxford. [...]
Blueprints for a Star Trekian Transporter
With traffic getting worse and more of us nettlesome Homo sapiens walking, driving and flying the planet, wouldn't it be nice if we had a transporter? Inspired by the book I wrote with William Shatner. [...]
Mating With Neanderthals and Other Joys of Prehistoric Life: Four Creatures You Didn’t Know You Were So Close To
Recent Discoveries About Neanderthals and Other Ancient Humans Have Given the Phrase "I'll be a monkey's Uncle!" a whole new meaning. [...]
Read an Excerpt from Last Ape Standing
From the Introduction of Last Ape Standing Over the past 180 years we have so far managed to stumble across, unearth and otherwise bring to light evidence that 26 separate human (hominin, to use the up-to-date scientific term) species have evolved on planet Earth. As you may have noticed, twenty-five of them are now no longer with us, done in by their environments, predators, disease, or the unfortunate shortcomings of their [...]