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HUMANS are unusual mammals. Along with bipedalism, naked skin and our unusually large size, there is also the uncomfortable fact that we are the only living member of our genus.

Most mammals have at least one or two close living relatives; some, like the house mouse, have over three dozen. But genetically speaking, modern humans are alone on the planet. And as the authors of The Last Human point out, we become more isolated every day as we push our closest relatives, the great apes, to the edge of extinction.

This action, Sarmiento and his colleagues believe, is just the latest manifestation of a violent intolerance of competition that has characterised the genus Homo and probably its antecedents. Fascinating though we might be, basically we are rather unpleasant.

The Homo lineage didn鈥檛 always have just a single representative. In The Last Human, a team of researchers from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City tell the story of the human lineage in the 6 or 7 million years since it split from the line that led to today鈥檚 chimps.

The family album begins with the ape-like Sahelanthropus and Ardepithecus, passes through the Australopithecines, via Kenyapithecus and Paranthropus (each of which had several contemporary species). The chronology ends with the modern singularity of Homo sapiens. The story is long and complex, with many details still unknown or uncertain, but the AMNH team presents it with extraordinary verve and vitality.

In a magnificent matching of precisely researched science and inspired popularisation, Sarmiento and his team take 22 of the best-understood human ancestors and not only put flesh on the bones but explain what those bones looked like and give us an inkling of what it might have been like to be the mind that moved them. It is not a complete compendium, but this gives the authors room to highlight the diversity of the human line without burying the reader in unwanted detail.

Following a fine scene-setting introduction by Ian Tattersall, the authors discuss each species individually, giving an evocative day-in-the-life account of the way they lived and a detailed discussion of their known remains, as well as what is known (or more often inferred) about their habitat, behaviour, diet and tools. The book even has amazingly detailed paintings showing how each species might have looked.

In this way we are introduced to the nest-making Sahelanthropus tchadensis, who lived (and died) at the mercy of big cats, the fruit-loving Kenyanthropus platyops and the nut-crushing Australopithecus afarensis. Other characters include the Paranthropus aethiopicus, who lived on a diet of rough greenery; Australopithecus garhi, who developed tools; and 11 other extinct members of the genus Homo including the hip-high Homo floresiensis, who lived by hunting dwarf elephants. Given the fact that many of the later species of Homo buried their dead, made jewellery and cared for crippled kin, they seem to have been very like us. If evidence from stone-shattered bones is correct, they also had a violent intolerance for other members of the genus.

This is fascinating stuff, not least because it drives home just how much of our knowledge about the past is based on inference. So often our ability to tell parts of this family history hinge on the chance preservation of single toe or finger bones. And in case you were wondering, there are appendices showing exactly how finds are interpreted and how the splendid pictures were created.

The book also helps dispel some myths. The old 19th-century view of the Great Tree of Life with amoebas at the bottom and humans at the top gives a distorted view of human lineage. One of the key points that comes across is that human ancestry is not like some kind of genealogical Christmas tree with modern humans perched fairy-like at the top. Instead it is wild and scrubby, with branches heading off in all directions. Through a combination of luck and bloody-minded belligerence we just happen to have survived to enjoy today鈥檚 sunlight.

If that gives us a suitable feeling of humility and ensures that we help preserve other lineages as well as our own, then The Last Human will have done its job.