Lone Survivors

by Chris Stringer

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  Acknowledgments

  Having worked in the field of paleoanthropology for forty years, I owe a huge debt to many people, and my network of friends and collaborators seems to get larger rather than smaller as time progresses, which is gratifying. So I am not going to attempt to name and thank everyone who has helped me in significant ways, stretching back to my family and foster family, my first teachers and supervisors, and those who welcomed me all over Europe as I began to gather data for my Ph.D. But many of my fellow researchers are identified in the book and bibliography by name, or through their ideas and influences on my thinking, and I hope I have represented their views fairly and accurately. I am certainly standing on the shoulders of giants as I grapple with reconstructing our evolutionary past, but I have also been greatly helped along the way by innumerable acts of kindness and generosity. My membership in three consortia—the completed Cambridge Stage 3 Project, the NERC-funded RESET project, and the AHOB project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust—has also greatly benefited me.

  For this book I am particularly grateful to Robert Kruszynski, Rebecca Varley-Winter, and Gabrielle Delbarre for their help with the bibliography, and for illustrations my thanks go to the Natural History Museum Department of Palaeontology, Photo Unit and Images Resources, and to Silvia Bello, John Reader, Francesco d’Errico, and Nicholas Conard. I am also very grateful to the editorial and production staff at Penguin Books and Henry Holt for all their work in bringing this book to publication.