The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor

"The Link" tells the wonderfully written story of Ida, the world in which she lived, and her last moments alive. The book also gives an excellent account of the confluence of events and unique circumstances that preserve Ida for 47 million years. Intertwined with Ida's story is the story of Dr. Jorn Hurum and his discovery of Ida's fossilized remains for sale in the shadowy world of private fossil collection. His efforts to acquire Ida for the University for which he works and assemble a team of experts to unravel and tell Ida's story is recounted. Among many other interesting subjects, the reader will learn of the Messel Pit in Germany and its unique properties, that have proven to be a treasure trove of fossils from Europe's distant tropical past, and how we almost lost this great preserve with its many fossilized treasures to a planned garbage dump. Written in an entertaining and easy to understand style, one will also gain a better understanding of the many scientific disciplines involved in finding, examining, identifying, and preserving fossils along with the highly trained individuals that worked together to decipher Ida's story.

"The Link" is a scientific detective story about a fossil (marketed as "Ida"), discovered several decades ago in a shale pit in Germany. It is dated to be 45 million years old and is clearly a primate, an ancestor to humans. It has stunning pictures of the fossil including the opposable thumbs, fingernails, baby teeth, and forearm bones that are easily recognizable as primate. Filling out the book is a wide ranging exposition of Eocene flora and fauna, and the relationships found the primate and hence human family tree. It is well written although the sheer number of scientific names can make your head spin. As an interested observer and student of general science, it was a most enjoyable read. If you are aware of and enjoyed "Lucy" you will be up to and enjoy "The Link".

As a former visiting scholar at the Field Museum of Natural History, I found The Link to be one of the best written books on the Eocene I've read in quite a while. The discovery of "Ida" is no doubt a water-shed event in the study of human evolution.

I was happy to learn many new things (being an undergrad studying Bio) including a simple yet intriguing description of the cooler climate that arose in the Eocene due to the "Azolla event" and the massive amounts of bicarbonates recycled via plate techtonics, especially in India. The wealth of information contained within the first 54 pages is enough to compel me to write this review. I know many doctors, nurses, students, etc. who excell in science but know next to nothing when it comes to evolution..or they simply read about the major findings such as Archaeopteryx, Baisilosaurus, Microraptor, Ambulocetus natans and such. This book describes in detail the landscape of the Eocene, describes the life present there at the time and reveals the recent discovery of Ida, a 47 million year old primate ancestor. Supposedly, this is "our oldest ancestor". As the previous reviewer stated, "The Link" is a horrible idea for a title because there is not only one "link" in the chain of our evolutionary history. Also, if you want to go deeper into our evolutionary past, you could say that Haikouella, a worm-like creature with a notochord, is one of our earlier ancestors if you include the members of the phylum Chordata as relatives.

You don't have to be a science junkie to be intrigued by the story told in The Link. This is a fascinating story about what could possibly be the missing link to our past. Personally, I have never been that interested in science, but this book is written in such a way that I was intrigued, entertained, and informed about so many different things about the possibilities of our past. It really made me think. Ida is an incredible fossil and I think that the ramifications of this amazing find are yet to be felt!