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CLOTHING dry fragments of fossil bone with the flesh of imagination
was Maurice Wilson’s gift. In Human Evolution (Natural History Museum, pp
48, Pounds sterling 7.50) his paintings of early humans and their ancestors
remind me of Chinese wildlife paintings: delicate washes of colour over
line drawings conjure up the lost forests of North Africa more than 30 million
years ago while his knowledge of anatomy enriches the drawings of early
primates, such as Aegypto pithecus (above) to Cro-Magnon Man. Peter Andrews,
head of the anthropology section at the Natural History Museum, London,
and Chris Stringer, curator of the museum’s fossil collection, have written
a clear guide that traces the development of our evolutionary line, and
shows how its diversity is shrinking.