Download or read book Early Human Kinship written by Nicholas J. Allen and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early Human Kinship brings together original studies from leading figures in the biological sciences, social anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics to provide a major breakthrough in the debate over human evolution and the nature of society. A major new collaboration between specialists across the range of the human sciences including evolutionary biology and psychology; social/cultural anthropology; archaeology and linguistics Provides a ground-breaking set of original studies offering a new perspective on early human history Debates fundamental questions about early human society: Was there a connection between the beginnings of language and the beginnings of organized 'kinship and marriage'? How far did evolutionary selection favor gender and generation as principles for regulating social relations? Sponsored by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in conjunction with the British Academy
Download or read book Evolution and Human Kinship written by Austin L. Hughes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1988-02-11 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While there have been controversial attempts to link conclusions from sociobiological studies of animal populations to humans, few behavioral scientists or anthropologists have made serious progress. In this work, Austin Hughes presents a unique and well-defined theoretical approach to human social behavior that is rooted in evolutionary biology and sociobiology, and which is additionally viewed as a direct continuation of the structural-functional tradition in anthropological research. Using mathematical and statistical techniques, Hughes applies the principles of kin selection theory--which states that natural selection can favor social acts that increase the fitness of both individuals and their relatives--to anthropological data. Among the topics covered are the subdivision of kin groups, selection of leaders in traditional societies, patronage systems, and the correspondence between social and biological kinship. The author concludes that patterns of concentration of relatedness are more important than average relatedness for predicting social behavior. He also shows that social interactions can often be predicted on the basis of common genetic interest in dependent offspring. The result is a major contribution to the field of behavioral biology.
Download or read book Kinship to Mastery written by Stephen R. Kellert and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2003-10 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kinship to Mastery is a fascinating and accessible exploration of the notion of biophilia -- the idea that humans, having evolved with the rest of creation, possess a biologically based attraction to nature and exhibit an innate affinity for life and lifelike processes. Stephen R. Kellert sets forth the idea that people exhibit different expressions of biophilia in different contexts, and demonstrates how our quality of life in the largest sense is dependent upon the richness of our connections with nature. While the natural world provides us with material necessities -- food, clothing, medicine, clean air, pure water -- it just as importantly plays a key role in other aspects of our lives, including intellectual capacity, emotional bonding, aesthetic attraction, creativity, imagination, and even the recognition of a just and purposeful existence. As Kellert explains, each expression of biophilia shows how our physical, material, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual well-being is to a great extent dependent on our relationships with the natural world that surrounds us. Kinship to Mastery is a thought-provoking examination of a concept that, while not widely known, has a significant and direct effect on the lives of people everywhere. Because the full expression of biophilia is integral to our overall health, our ongoing destruction of the environment could have far more serious consequences than many people think. In a readable and compelling style, Kellert describes and explains the concept of biophilia, and demonstrates to a general audience the wide-ranging implications of environmental degradation. Kinship to Mastery continues the exploration of biophilia begun with Edward O. Wilson's landmark book Biophilia (Harvard University Press, 1984) and followed by The Biophilia Hypothesis (Island Press, 1993), co-edited by Wilson and Kellert, which brought together some of the most creative scientists of our time to explore Wilson's theory in depth.
Download or read book Primeval kinship written by Bernard Chapais and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At some point in the course of evolutionâe"from a primeval social organization of early hominidsâe"all human societies, past and present, would emerge. In this account of the dawn of human society, Bernard Chapais shows that our knowledge about kinship and society in nonhuman primates supports, and informs, ideas first put forward by the distinguished social anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss. Chapais contends that only a few evolutionary steps were required to bridge the gap between the kinship structures of our closest relativesâe"chimpanzees and bonobosâe"and the human kinship configuration. The pivotal event, the author proposes, was the evolution of sexual alliances. Pair-bonding transformed a social organization loosely based on kinship into one exhibiting the strong hold of kinship and affinity. The implication is that the gap between chimpanzee societies and pre-linguistic hominid societies is narrower than we might think. Many books on kinship have been written by social anthropologists, but Primeval Kinship is the first book dedicated to the evolutionary origins of human kinship. And perhaps equally important, it is the first book to suggest that the study of kinship and social organization can provide a link between social and biological anthropology.
Download or read book The Genius of Kinship written by German Valentinovich Dziebel and published by Cambria Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dziebel has doctorates in both history and anthropology and is currently both advisor to the Great Russian Encyclopedia and senior anthropologist at Crispin Porter + Bogusky advertising agency. His extremely dense work is actually three books in one. The first is a history of kinship studies from the early 19th century to the present. The second is a comparative study of kinship terminology among non-Indo-European languages, for which he has also prepared a data base published on the internet. The third section, highly controversial, as he admits, uses anthropology, mitochondrial studies and linguistics to suggest that the "out of Africa" model of human origins may be in error and that the first humans actually came from the Americas and spread from there to the rest of the world.
Download or read book Evolution and Human Kinship written by Austin L. Hughes and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1988 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A theoretical approach to human social behaviour that is rooted in evolutionary biology and sociobiology, applying the principles of kin selection theory.
Download or read book Genomic Imprinting and Kinship written by David Haig and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genomic imprinting allows scientists to trace genes to the parent of origin. This volume presents a collection of 13 papers by David Haig (organisimic and evolutionary biology, Harvard U.) on genomic imprinting. He argues that our paternally and maternally active genes do not work in cooperation with each other and in fact are in competition. Each paper is followed by commentary by the author, providing background information and discussing developments since its publication. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR.
Download or read book Apes and Human Evolution written by Russell H. Tuttle and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-17 with total page 1089 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this masterwork, Russell H. Tuttle synthesizes a vast research literature in primate evolution and behavior to explain how apes and humans evolved in relation to one another, and why humans became a bipedal, tool-making, culture-inventing species distinct from other hominoids. Along the way, he refutes the influential theory that men are essentially killer apes—sophisticated but instinctively aggressive and destructive beings. Situating humans in a broad context, Tuttle musters convincing evidence from morphology and recent fossil discoveries to reveal what early primates ate, where they slept, how they learned to walk upright, how brain and hand anatomy evolved simultaneously, and what else happened evolutionarily to cause humans to diverge from their closest relatives. Despite our genomic similarities with bonobos, chimpanzees, and gorillas, humans are unique among primates in occupying a symbolic niche of values and beliefs based on symbolically mediated cognitive processes. Although apes exhibit behaviors that strongly suggest they can think, salient elements of human culture—speech, mating proscriptions, kinship structures, and moral codes—are symbolic systems that are not manifest in ape niches. This encyclopedic volume is both a milestone in primatological research and a critique of what is known and yet to be discovered about human and ape potential.
Download or read book Human Family Systems written by Pierre L. Van den Berghe and published by New York : Elsevier. This book was released on 1979-01-01 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book bridges the gap that has separated the social sciences from biology by examining the anthropological & sociological thinking in the field of kinship, marriage & reproduction.
Download or read book Children of Time written by Anne H. Weaver and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 2012-04-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient relics--stone tools, bones, footprints, and even DNA--offer many clues about our human ancestors and how they lived. At the same time, our kinship with our human ancestors lies as much in their sense of humor, their interactions with others, their curiosity and their moments of wonder, as it does in the shape of their bones and teeth. And the evolution of human behavior left no direct fossil traces. Children of Time brings this vanished aspect of the human past to life through Anne Weaver's scientifically- informed imagination. The stories move through time, following the lives of long-ago hominins through the eyes of their children. Each carefully researched chapter is based on an actual child fossil--a baby, a five-year- old, a young adolescent, and teenagers. The children and their families are brought to life through illustrator Matt Celeskey's vividly rendered paleoenvironments where they encounter saber-toothed cats, giraffids, wild dogs, fearsome crocodiles, and primitive horses. Their adventures invite readers to think about what it means to be human, and to speculate on the human drama as it unfolds in many dimensions, from social organization and technology to language, music, art, and religious consciousness. Visit the website at www.children-of-time.com.
Download or read book Human Nature and the Evolution of Society written by Stephen Sanderson and published by Westview Press. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, and human behavioral ecology, this introduction to human behavior and the organization of social life explores the evolutionary dynamics underlying social life.
Download or read book Family Relationships written by Catherine A. Salmon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-09-14 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kinship ties-the close relationships found within the family-have been a central focus of evolutionary biological analyses of social behavior ever since biologist William Hamilton extended the concept of Darwinian fitness to include an individual's actions benefiting not only his own offspring, but also collateral kin. Evolutionary biologists consider organisms not only reproductive strategists, but also nepotistic strategists. If a person's genes are just as likely to be reproduced in her sister as in her daughter, then we should expect the evolution of sororal investment in the same way as one expects maternal investment. This concept has revolutionized biologists' understanding of social interaction and developmental psychologists' understanding of the family. However, kinship ties have largely been ignored in other areas of psychology, particularly social psychology. Family Relationships brings together leading theorists and researchers from evolutionary psychology and related disciplines to illustrate the ways in which an evolutionary perspective can inform our study and understanding of family relationships. The contributors argue that family psychology is relationship specific: the relationship between mother and daughter is different from that between father and daughter or that between brother and sister or sister and sister. In other words, humans have evolved specialized mechanisms for processing information and motivating behavior that deal with the distinct demands of being a mate, father, mother, sibling, child, or grandparent. Such an evolutionary perspective on family dynamics provides a unique insight into human behavior. This volume will be an indispensable resource for psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists, as well scholars of family, marriage, and animal behavior.
Download or read book How Culture Makes Us Human written by Dwight W Read and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What separates modern humans from our primate cousins—are we a mere blink in the march of evolution, or does human culture represent the definitive evolutionary turn? Dwight Read explores the dilemma in this engaging, thought-provoking book, taking readers through an evolutionary odyssey from our primate beginnings through the development of culture and social organization. He assesses the two major trends in this field: one that sees us as a logical culmination of primate evolution, arguing that the rudiments of culture exist in primates and even magpies, and another that views the human transition as so radical that the primate model provides no foundation for understanding human dynamics. Expertly synthesizing a wide body of evidence from the anthropological and life sciences in accessible prose, Read’s book will interest a broad readership from experts to undergraduate students and the general public.
Download or read book Tales of the Ex Apes written by Jonathan Marks and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do we think about when we think about human evolution? With his characteristic wit and wisdom, anthropologist Jonathan Marks explores our scientific narrative of human origins—the study of evolution—and examines its cultural elements and theoretical foundations. In the process, he situates human evolution within a general anthropological framework and presents it as a special case of kinship and mythology. Tales of the Ex-Apes argues that human evolution has incorporated the emergence of social relations and cultural histories that are unprecedented in the apes and thus cannot be reduced to purely biological properties and processes. Marks shows that human evolution has involved the transformation from biological to biocultural evolution. Over tens of thousands of years, new social roles—notably spouse, father, in-laws, and grandparents—have co-evolved with new technologies and symbolic meanings to produce the human species, in the absence of significant biological evolution. We are biocultural creatures, Marks argues, fully comprehensible by recourse to neither our real ape ancestry nor our imaginary cultureless biology.
Download or read book Evolution Early Experience and Human Development written by Darcia Narváez and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2012-11-29 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of cognitive psychology has expanded rapidly in recent years, with experts in affective and cognitive neuroscience revealing more about mammalian brain function than ever before. In contrast, psychological problems such as ADHD, autism, anxiety, and depression are on the rise, as are medical conditions such as diabetes, obesity, and autoimmune disorders. Why, in this era of unprecedented scientific self-knowledge, does there seem to be so much uncertainty about what human beings need for optimal development? Evolution, Early Experience and Human Development asserts that human development is being misshaped by government policies, social practices, and public beliefs that fail to consider basic human needs. In this pioneering volume, scientists from a range of disciplines theorize that the increase in conditions such as depression and obesity can be partially attributed to a disparity between the environments and conditions under which our mammalian brains currently develop and our evolutionary heritage. For example, healthy brain and emotional development depends to a significant extent upon caregiver availability and quality of care. These include practices such as breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and parental social support, which have waned in modern society, but nevertheless may be integral to healthy development. As the authors argue, without a more informed appreciation of the ideal conditions under which human brains/minds develop and function, human beings will continue to struggle with suboptimal mental and physical health, and as problems emerge psychological treatments alone will not be effective. The best approach is to recognize these needs at the outset so as to optimize child development. Evolution, Early Experience and Human Development puts forth a logical, empirically based argument regarding human mammalian needs for optimal development, based on research from anthropology, neurobiology, animal science, and human development. The result is a unique exploration of evolutionary approaches to human behavior that will support the advancement of new policies, new attitudes towards health, and alterations in childcare practices that will better promote healthy human development.
Download or read book Adaptive Evolution of Genes and Genomes written by Austin L. Hughes and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This valuable book thoroughly examines adaptive evolution at the DNA level while taking a comprehensive look at the research being done in the area. It presents useful cases where signals of adaptive evolution are detected through neutral molecular evolution, providing a powerful strategy for testing the Darwinian hypothesis of natural selection. By bridging the gap between research on molecular and phenotype evolution and contributing to the unification of the biological sciences, this book will especially appeal to researchers and graduate students in the field of evolutionary biology. Also, with its focus on particular protein molecules and on specific domains of these proteins, it will benefit a wider audience of both evolutionary and functional biologists.
Download or read book Kinship Belonging in a World of Relations Vol 1 Planet written by Gavin Van Horn and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 1 of the Kinship series revolves around the question of planetary relations: What are the sources of our deepest evolutionary and planetary connections, and of our profound longing for kinship? We live in an astounding world of relations. We share these ties that bind with our fellow humans-and we share these relations with nonhuman beings as well. From the bacterium swimming in your belly to the trees exhaling the breath you breathe, this community of life is our kin. For many cultures around the world, being human is based upon this extended sense of kinship.Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations is a lively series that explores our deep interconnections with the living world. The five Kinship volumes--Planet, Place, Partners, Persons, Practice--offer essays, interviews, poetry, and stories of solidarity, highlighting the interdependence that exists between humans and nonhuman beings. More than 70 contributors--including Robin Wall Kimmerer, Richard Powers, David Abram, J. Drew Lanham, and Sharon Blackie--invite readers into cosmologies, narratives, and everyday interactions that embrace a more-than-human world as worthy of our response and responsibility. With every breath, every sip of water, every meal, we are reminded that our lives are inseparable from the life of the world--and the cosmos--in ways both material and spiritual. "Planet," Volume 1 of the Kinship series, focuses on our Earthen home and the cosmos within which our "pale blue dot" of a planet nestles. National poet laureate Joy Harjo opens up the volume asking us to "Remember the sky you were born under." The essayists and poets that follow-such as geologist Marcia Bjornerud who takes readers on a Deep Time journey, geophilosopher David Abram who imagines the Earth's breathing through animal migrations, and theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser who contemplates the relations between mystery and science--offer perspectives from around the world and from various cultures about what it means to be an Earthling, and all that we share in common with our planetary kin. "Remember," Harjo implores, "all is in motion, is growing, is you."
