(STEVE) OLSON, MAPPING HUMAN HISTORY—Human evolution has … been a maze of dead ends, unexpected detours, … sudden changes of direction [and] … failed evolutionary experiments … . In the end, we are the product of a relentless winnowing process, a trial by extinction.
Human evolution has [not been a straightforward slog from lower to higher. It's] been a maze of dead ends, unexpected detours, [and] sudden changes of direction[. Many of the fossils that we have assumed belong to our ancestors probably represent failed] evolutionary experiments[, lineages of different kinds of humans that did not survive.] In the end, we are the product of a relentless winnowing process, a trial by extinction.
| A. | 1985 film set on a coffee plantation (3 wds.) | OUTOFAFRICA |
| B. | Stewart's partner in Eurythmics | LENNOX |
| C. | Prognosis for the fittest | SURVIVAL |
| D. | Atmospheric subject of the Montreal Protocol | OZONE |
| E. | Like all the notes in a C major scale | NATURAL |
| F. | Event that occurs, on average, about 50 minutes later each day | MOONRISE |
| G. | Ones high up in a tree? | ANCESTORS |
| H. | Interlocutor of Socrates; Platonic dialogue | PHAEDRUS |
| I. | "That was close!" | PHEW |
| J. | Adjusted, as wages; organized, as pages | INDEXED |
| K. | Musical about a group of striking kids | NEWSIES |
| L. | Class involving X's and Y's | GENETICS |
| M. | Cage for small animals | HUTCH |
| N. | Like 1/0, for instance | UNDEFINED |
| O. | Distinguished pea-brain? | MENDEL |
| P. | Overseas traveler's need | ADAPTOR |
| Q. | Second-rater, lightweight, chopped liver | NONENTITY |
| R. | Famed vessel that circled the world in the 1830s (2 wds.) | HMSBEAGLE |
| S. | Spotted; diagnosed | IDENTIFIED |
| T. | ____ Sunday, occasion for the release of many seeds | SELECTION |
| U. | Got more popular, in a way | TRENDED |
| V. | U-shaped bend | OXBOW |
| W. | Persistent; passed on | REPEATED |
| X. | Region of Mexico that yielded the Americas' most complete Ice Age skeleton | YUCATAN |