In October 2004, a team of Australian and Indonesian anthropologists led by Mike Morwood and Raden Pandji Soejono stunned the world with their announcement of the discovery of the first example of a new species of human, Homo floresiensis, which they nicknamed the "Hobbit." This was no creation of Tolkien's fantasy, however, but a tool-using, fire-making, cooperatively hunting person. The more Morwood and his colleagues revealed about the find, the more astonishing it became: standing only three feet tall with brains a little larger than a can of cola, the Hobbits forced anthropologists and everyone to reconsider what it means to be human.
Morwood's work was no ordinary academic exercise. Along the way he had to tread warily through the cultural landscape of Indonesia—he has an embarrassing mishap with some hard-to-chew pork—and he demonstrated that sometimes the life of a real archaeologist can be a bit like Indiana Jones's when he risked his neck in an ocean-going raft to experience how ancient Indonesians might have navigated the archipelago. 
Even more, Morwood had to navigate the rock shoals of an archaeological bureaucracy that could be obtuse and even spiteful, and when the Hobbits became embroiled in scientific controversy—as no find of such magnitude could avoid—it proved easy for Morwood to get nearly swamped with trouble. Finds were stolen and damaged, and the backbiting was fierce. But the light of science, once brightened, is difficult to dim, and the story of the indefatigable Morwood's fight to defend his find discovery is an inspiration.

A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the "Hobbits" of Flores, Indonesia

Politics & Social Sciences

Morwood, Mike

Van Oosterzee, Penny

Anthropology

Smithsonian

An account of the landmark 2004 archaeological discovery of the extinct Indonesian race explains why it has been named one of history's most important scientific findings and what the "Hobbit" civilization reveals about ancient and modern people. 25,000 first printing.

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

Collins

The Centre: The Natural History of Australia's Desert Regions

Nature & Ecology

Reed Books

Alfred Russel Wallace, the father of biogeography, discovered the flora and fauna of the South East Asian islands and the extraordinary way in which they are geographically distinct. In a lively historical narrative, Penny van Oosterzee tells the story of his achievement. His legacy is the Wallace Line, a faunal barrier separating the Asian from the Australian: monkeys from kangaroos, weaver birds from cockatoos, and pheasants from parrots. This invisible boundary and the difference between the species it divides catalyzed Wallace's theory of evolution and prodded Darwin to articulate his own theory.    In Where Worlds Collide, van Oosterzee follows Wallace's journeys through the islands of South East Asia. She draws on Wallace's natural history travelogue, The Malay Archipelago, a book he wrote after spending the years from 1854 to 1862 in Malaysia, Indonesia, and New Guinea. Explaining his theory and how it has been interpreted by biologists, van Oosterzee also re-creates Wallace's sense of excitement with his discoveries. She devotes a chapter to the diversity of butterfly wing patterns, for example, because Wallace was so enamored of them.

Where worlds collide: The Wallace line

Reed

Men killed for them, stole for them, and died for them. "Dragon bones," coveted throughout China for their medicinal powers, are in reality animal fossils, ground down and sold through back-street Chinese apothecaries. Yet at one time these "dragon bones" proved more valuable than anyone had imagined, for they led to the unearthing of one of the most famous hominid fossils of all time-Peking Man. The Peking Man fossils were the first convincing evidence that humans arose from apelike hominids.Penny van Oosterzee has written a riveting historical account of the discovery of Peking Man, from the excavation of one small fossilized molar to the mysterious disappearance of the fossils at the beginning of the Second World War.

Dragon Bones

Basic Books

Alfred Russel Wallace, the father of biogeography, discovered the flora and fauna of the South East Asian islands and the extraordinary way in which they are geographically distinct. In a lively historical narrative, Penny van Oosterzee tells the story of his achievement. His legacy is the Wallace Line, a faunal barrier separating the Asian from the Australian: monkeys from kangaroos, weaver birds from cockatoos, and pheasants from parrots. This invisible boundary and the difference between the species it divides catalyzed Wallace's theory of evolution and prodded Darwin to articulate his own theory. 
In Where Worlds Collide, van Oosterzee follows Wallace's journeys through the islands of South East Asia. She draws on Wallace's natural history travelogue, The Malay Archipelago, a book he wrote after spending the years from 1854 to 1862 in Malaysia, Indonesia, and New Guinea. Explaining his theory and how it has been interpreted by biologists, van Oosterzee also re-creates Wallace's sense of excitement with his discoveries. She devotes a chapter to the diversity of butterfly wing patterns, for example, because Wallace was so enamored of them.

Where Worlds Collide: The Wallace Line

Biographies & Memoirs

Cornell University Press

In the most revolutionary archaeological find of the new century, an international team of archaeologists led by Mike Morwood discovered a new, diminutive species of human on the remote Indonesian island of Flores. Nicknamed the “Hobbit,” this was no creation of Tolkien's fantasy. The three foot tall skeleton with a brain the size of a chimpanzee’s was a tool-using, fire-making, cooperatively hunting person who inhabited Flores alongside modern humans as recently as 13,000 years ago. This book is Morwood’s description of this monumental discovery and the intense study that has been undertaken to validate his view of its relationship to our species. He chronicles the bitter debates over Homo Floresiensis, the objections (some spiteful) of colleagues, the theft and damage of some of the specimens, and the endless battle against government and academic bureaucracies that hindered his research. This updated paperback edition contains an epilogue that reports on the most recent debates, findings, and analyses of this amazing discovery.

A New Human

Routledge

A sweeping account of Australia's wet tropical rainforest country, from deep time to the legendary time of Australia's first peoples; from the killing times and maniacal destruction of the forests by European settlers, to the present time of growing awareness of forests as the life-force of the planet.

Cloud Land: The Dramatic Story of Australia's Extraordinary Rainforest People and Country

History

Australia & Oceania

Allen& Unwin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Van Oosterzee, Penny. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Van Oosterzee, Penny

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Van Oosterzee, Penny. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the "Hobbits" of Flores, Indonesia

A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the "Hobbits" of Flores, Indonesia

The Centre: The Natural History of Australia's Desert Regions

Where worlds collide: The Wallace line

Dragon Bones

Where Worlds Collide: The Wallace Line

A New Human

Cloud Land: The Dramatic Story of Australia's Extraordinary Rainforest People and Country

Dragon Bones