Our Dolphin Ancestors

Wild animals avoid contact with humans, but wild dolphins seek us out to play and socialize, even going so far as to voluntarily rescue people from drowning. What explains this remarkable natural affinity? Revealing the evolutionary basis for our special relationship with dolphins, Frank Joseph explains how we are both descendants of the same ancient branch of humanity. Integrating scientific research on dolphin intelligence, communication, and physiology with enduring myths from some of the world's oldest cultures, such as the Aborigines, Norse, Greeks, and Celts, the author examines our physical commonalities with dolphins, including their vestigial thumbs and legs, birth processes, and body temperature. He explores dolphins' mysterious role in the birth of early civilization and their connections with the Dog Star, Sirius, and Atlantis and Lemuria--a bond still commemorated by annual gatherings of millions of dolphins. As Frank Joseph shows, if we can learn to fully communicate with dolphins, accessing their millennia-old oral tradition, we may learn the truth about humanity's origins and our shared future, when humankind may yet again quit the land for a final return to the sea.