25 Jan 2022

How wood shaped human history and evolution

From Nine To Noon, 10:05 am on 25 January 2022

Roland Ennos says humanity owes a huge debt to the most humble of materials; wood.

His book The Wood Age: How One Material Shaped the Whole of Human History takes us on a sweeping ten-million-year tour, charting how wood has been critical to our evolution; shaping our bodies and our minds.

Starting from great apes who built their nests among the trees, to early humans who depended on wood for fire, shelter, tools and weapons; on to the structural design of wheels and woodwinds, and to the invention of paper and the printing press. 

Roland Ennos a visiting professor of biological sciences at the University of Hull and has an expansive knowledge of all things arboreal - and has literally written the book on trees; the author of the Natural History Museum's official guide to trees. 

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Photo: Supplied