Monster of God by David Quammen, Hutchinson/Random House, £25, ISBN 0091799570 Reviewed by Nicholas Saunders
WHERE do monsters live? And where do they come from? For millions of years, the world’s great predators hunted and ate our early hominid ancestors. Yet, by the time of Homo sapiens, the power of mind and the opposable thumb had created strategies and weapons that enabled Palaeolithic hunters to replace felines, bears, and crocodiles at the top of the food chain. As they did so, the same cognitive abilities transformed living beasts into art.
Aeons of animal dominance have left an indelible mark on…
