Prehistoric Past Revealed: The Four Billion Year History of Life on Earth

Full Details
Level
Price
Common Core
Images
No items found.

Life on earth is now known to be an astonishing four billion years old. Yet as recently as two hundred years or so ago, much of world believed that all life was created in just six days. Over the past two centuries, the testimony of rocks has slowly revealed the Earth’s deep prehistory and now scarcely a week passes without an important new discovery adding to our understanding of life’s beginning and evolution. Written for a very wide audience, with an approachable text and many photographs and illustrations, Prehistoric Past Revealed tells the story of these discoveries. The book gives an overview history of life on Earth, including the most up-to-date research and discoveries from around the world, as it covers a wide range of fascinating topics—the fossil record, dinosaurs, extinction events, our earliest human ancestors, global environments, climate change—in a highly accessible format.

Using timelines, diagrams, sidebar discussions, and breaking down complex ideas into digestible topics, Palmer shows how it has been possible to recover the story of life from the petrified remains of shells and bones scattered through rock strata. He takes us from the present day gradually back into the “terra incognita” of the deep past with its extinct life forms, tracing human ancestry back by centering his discussion around internationally famous fossil sites. Each site reveals another episode in the history of life, as Palmer tells how the environment and life of the time have been reconstructed from its rocks and fossil remains. As it reveals the inner secrets of the Earth, Prehistoric Past Revealed also shows how these discoveries have irrevocably changed our worldview.

Full Details
Formats: 
Part of resource: 
Posted 
Aug 2023
This resource has religious influence.

Similar resources

Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
College
Smithsonian Timelines of the Ancient World
Smithsonian Timelines of the Ancient World
7th - College
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
6th - College
Atlas of the Prehistoric World
Atlas of the Prehistoric World
High School - College
Earth geological and climatic history
Earth geological and climatic history
8th - College
Life on earth and in the universe
Life on earth and in the universe
High School - College

About Douglas Palmer

More by Douglas Palmer

thumbnail
Atlas of the Prehistoric World
Atlas of the Prehistoric World
High School - College