"A radically immersive exploration of three pivotal moments in the evolution of human consciousness, asking what kinds of creatures humans were, are, and might yet be"-- How did humans come to be who we are? Foster explores three pivotal moments in the evolution of human consciousness in order to understand perhaps the strangest animal of all: the human being. Readers will experience the Upper Paleolithic era as a Cro-Magnon hunter-gatherer, living in makeshift shelters without amenities in the rural woods of England. For the Neolithic period, when humans stayed in one place and domesticated plants and animals, they learn about a Neolithic settlement. To explore the Enlightenment, Foster finds his world and himself bizarre and disembodied, and he rues the atrophy of our senses, the cause for much of what ails us. -- adapted from jacket