Elizabeth Marshall Thomas was nineteen when her father took his family to live among the Bushmen of the Kalahari. Fifty years later, after a life of writing and study, Thomas returns to her experiences with the Bushmen, one of the last hunter-gatherer societies on earth, and discovers among them an essential link to the origins of all human society.
Humans lived for 1,500 centuries as roving clans, adapting daily to changes in environment and food supply, living for the most part like their animal ancestors. Those origins are not so easily abandoned, Thomas suggests, and our modern society has plenty still to learn from the Bushmen.
Through her vivid, empathic account, Thomas reveals a template for the lives and societies of all humankind.
We had lived in savannah for a million years. During that time the world got warm again and wetter, and some of the rain forest returned. But for us it was too late. By then we knew how to live only on the savannah. We could still climb trees, but we did not go back.
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