In this work, leading anthropologist Noel T. Boaz describes how innovative research techniques have transformed our understanding of our earliest human ancestors. By telling the story of his own 20-year quest for the missing link in northern and eastern Africa, Boaz shows how palaeo-anthropology no longer focuses exclusively on individual fossil specimens, but increasingly on geological, faunal, and floral evidence, integrating data from many fields of inquiry into a holistic picture of human evolution. His controversial findings suggest that the drying of the Mediterranean Sea some five million years ago first set humans on their own evolutionary trajectory. Throughout the book Boaz maintains that knowledge of our origins helps to define what makes us truly human and that an "evolutionary perspective" provides a necessary context for addresing many of today"s problems.