Preface 1. Our ancestors' story - The revolutionary innovation: walking upright - How old is that fossil? - The human tree of descent - The old hominins - The golden age of ape-men - The first Homos - Towards modern times 2. From egg to human - Heterochrony and Haeckel's law - Cleavages and germ layers - Axes provide direction - Developmental biology's model animals - The molecular tool kit - Limbs need new axes 3. The tinkered body - Tinkering, watchmakers and a Boeing 747 - The naked body - Adaptations to bipedalism in the locomotor apparatus - Gill slits, jaws, the thyroid, and the middle ear - Heart, urogenitals, guts and lungs - Evolution of the brain 4. There's got to be differences - Neutral jumps or stepwise adaptation? - The origin of genetic variation - Equilibrium between allele and genotype frequencies - Neutral evolution - Geographic distance and genetic variation - On top of genetics 5. The past inside the present - Phylogenetic reconstruction - The molecular clock and coalescence analysis - Out of Africa or multiregional evolution? - Migrations in so many directions - Hybridizations between ancient hominins 6. The cultural human - Prehistoric tools and cave art - The Neolithic transition - Evolution of language: early or late? - Group living; kin selection and altruism - Cultural evolution 7. Do humans still evolve? - Quantitative genetics and heritability - Evolution of biomedical traits - Evolution of the human life-cycle - Partner preference and sexual selection - Evolutionary medicine Epilogue Further reading Primary literature Figure acknowledgements Index