THE ANCESTOR'S TALE is a pilgrimage back through time; a journey on which we meet up with fellow pilgrims as we & they converge on our common ancestors. Chimpanzees join us at about 6 million years in the past orang utans at 14 million years as we stride on together a growing b&. The journey provides the setting for a collection of some 40 tales. Each explores an aspect of evolutionary biology through the stories of characters met along the way. The tales are interspersed with prologues detailing the journey route maps showing joining lineages & life-like reconstructions of our common ancestors. THE ANCESTOR'S TALE represents a pilgrimage on an unimaginable scale: our goal is four billion years away & the number of pilgrims joining us grows vast
- ultimately encompassing all living creatures. At the end of the journey lies something remarkable in its simplicity & transformative power: the first humble replicating molecules.