PDF-(EBOOK)-Human Evolution Source Book

For Junior Senior and Graduate courses in Human Evolution taught in anthropology and biology departmentsThis book is the most comprehensive collection of cutting edge articles on human evolution Designed for use by students in anthropology paleontology and evolutionary biology this edited volume brings together the major ideas and publications on human evolution of the past three decades The book spans the entire scope of human evolution with particular emphasis on the fossil record including archaeological studies. The Development of an Extraordinary Species…We human beings share 98 percent of our genes with chimpanzees. Yet humans are the dominant species on the planet -- having founded civilizations and religions, developed intricate and diverse forms of communication, learned science, built cities, and created breathtaking works of art -- while chimps remain animals concerned primarily with the basic necessities of survival. What is it about that two percent difference in DNA that has created such a divergence between evolutionary cousins?In this fascinating, provocative, passionate, funny, endlessly entertaining work, renowned Pulitzer Prize?winning author and scientist Jared Diamond explores how the extraordinary human animal, in a remarkably short time, developed the capacity to rule the world . . . and the means to irrevocably destroy it. Our experience of the world is driven by processes common to all animals: growth, survival, reproduction and death. Evolution and Human Behaviour explores the complexities of the human experience through the lens of Darwinism, drawing on a long and vibrant tradition of different theories and interpretations. This textbook offers a compelling synthesis of key concepts, addressing human thought, feeling and behaviour in fundamental evolutionary terms. The third edition of Evolution and Human Behaviour:Has been revised, updated and expanded throughout, with new chapters on health and disease, homosexuality, the nature of adaptations and life history theoryIncludes brand-new material on epigenetics, patterns of crime, error management theory, moral foundations theory, religion and gene culture co-evolutionIs accompanied by a companion website offering additional reading material and useful practice questionsWritten for students of psychology, human biology, ethology, anthropology and human behavioural ecology, this is an essential introduction for anyone who wishes to understand how human behaviour has evolved. 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—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 makes a strong case that human evolution cannot be reduced to purely biological properties and processes given that it has incorporated the emergence of social relations and cultural histories that are unprecedented in the apes. Marks contends that human evolution over the past few million years 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. Few disciplines have experienced such significant changes over the last few years as has the study of prehistory. Thanks to the progress of genetics, we now know for instance that 40,000 years ago, we shared the planet with three other species of the Homo genus. As for new dating methods, they have taught us that Sapiens left its African cradle a good 100,000 years earlier than we had first imagined . . . Meanwhile, anthropology has tackled the issue of what is inherent to mankind: Is it the use of tools? The presence of a ‘large’ brain? Articulated language? Bipedalism? Empathy? All of which suggests the urgent need to take stock of our ancestors and to listen to the latest news on Homo Sapiens. Not only do the authors deliver a valuable overview of the latest findings on the topic, they also look at the future of our strange species. They offer a riveting account of the social animals that we are, migrants with a rapidly expanding population, who have forever transformed their environment. The human brain is astonishingly different from the brain of any other animal. Written like a detective story, this book brings together the wealth of new research from neurobiology, genetics, and paleontology to explain the runaway evolution of the human brain. Illus. A virtual portable museum on the subject of human evolution--based on the fascinating displays featured in the new Hall of Human Biology and Evolution at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Maps, charts, timelines, sidebars. Over 125 illustrations, 55 in full color. This interdisciplinary book interprets early human evolution in the context of the local ecology and specific habitats. It assesses carefully the possible role of climate change in driving early human evolution. Bringing an ecological and biogeographic perspective to recent fossil finds, the book provides a new synthesis of ideas on hominid evolution. It will be a valuable resource for researchers in physical, biological, or paleoanthropology, evolutionary biology or biogeography. In one sense, human heads function much like those of other mammals. We use them to chew, smell, swallow, think, hear, and so on. But, in other respects, the human head is quite unusual. Unlike other animals, even our great ape cousins, our heads are short and wide, very big brained, snoutless, largely furless, and perched on a short, nearly vertical neck. Daniel E. Lieberman sets out to explain how the human head works, and why our heads evolved in this peculiarly human way.Exhaustively researched and years in the making, this innovative book documents how the many components of the head function, how they evolved since we diverged from the apes, and how they interact in diverse ways both functionally and developmentally, causing them to be highly integrated. This integration not only permits the head\'s many units to accommodate each other as they grow and work, but also facilitates evolutionary change. Lieberman shows how, when, and why the major transformations evident in the evolution of the human head occurred. The special way the head is integrated, Lieberman argues, made it possible for a few developmental shifts to have had widespread effects on craniofacial growth, yet still permit the head to function exquisitely.This is the first book to explore in depth what happened in human evolution by integrating principles of development and functional morphology with the hominin fossil record. The Evolution of the Human Head will permanently change the study of human evolution and has widespread ramifications for thinking about other branches of evolutionary biology. \"Man the Hunted argues that primates, including the earliest members of the human family, have evolved as the prey of any number of predators, including wild cats and dogs, hyenas, snakes, crocodiles, and even birds. The authors’ studies of predators on monkeys and apes are supplemented here with the observations of naturalists in the field and revealing interpretations of the fossil record. Eyewitness accounts of the ?man the hunted” drama being played out even now give vivid evidence of its prehistoric significance. This provocative view of human evolution suggests that countless adaptations that have allowed our species to survive?from larger brains to speech?stem from a considerably more vulnerable position on the food chain than we might like to imagine. The myth of early humans as fearless hunters dominating the earth obscures our origins as just one of many species that had to be cautious, depend on other group members, communicate danger, and come to terms with being merely one cog in the complex cycle of life. The expanded edition includes a new chapter that describes the ever-increasing evidence of predation on humans and other primates and claims that the earliest humans were neither hunters nor even the accomplished scavengers that many authorities have claimed.
Contents
Foreword by Ian Tattersall 1. Just Another Item on the Menu 2. Debunking ?Man the Hunter” 3. Who’s Eating Whom? 4. Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My! 5. Coursing Hyenas and Hungry Dogs 6. Missionary Position 7. Terror from the Sky 8. We Weren’t Just Waiting Around to be Eaten! 9. Gentle Savage or Bloodthirsty Brute? 10. Man the Hunted 11. The Final Word\" Why are chimp babies skinny, while human babies are so fat they float? As humans developed greater intelligence--and increased cranial capacity--how did babies and mothers adapt to increased fetal brain size? And how did humans develop our unique intelligence. Elaine Morgan, an internationallybestselling science writer known for her iconoclastic take on evolutionary theory, addresses these questions and more in The Descent of the Child, an intriguing and controversial look at human evolution from the point of view of infant development. Beginning with the assertion that much of our thinking about human evolution exercises an unconscious bias--that we envision an archetypal human being as an adult--Morgan sets out to explain why human infants evolved in the way they did. We are often told how, in the course of a million years, adults acquired increased dexterity, adaptability, intelligence, and powers of communication. We are seldom reminded that over the same period infants became more helpless, more vulnerable, and more inert. Morgan focuses on the relationship between these two facts as she develops a stunning theoryof the origins of human intelligence she argues that our capacity for intelligence is a byproduct of evolving babyhood. Uniquely among primates, homo sapiens are born with considerable struggle, emerge wholly helpless, and continue to be dependent for a long time afterwards--only their eyes, faces, and vocal cords work. They don\'t know that they\'re not always going to be like that, Morgan posits, but, bent on survival, they try to manipulate their parents or other caregivers to do things that the babies can\'t do for themselves. (For instance, they\'ll cry for food, and only human babiescontinue crying after being picked up, sending a strong message not to be so remiss next time.) These early struggles, according to Morgan, provide our formative intellectual activity. It is in infancy that we really learn to think and to question. In her much debated earlier works, Morgan has championed the controversial Aquatic Ape Theory of human evolution against the widely accepted Savannah Theory. The Descent of the Child takes her further into the fray with a provocative new argument adding new evidence to support AAT even as sheexplores such urgent topics as conception and infertility, the maturation of the fetus, child rearing and parental roles, overpopulation, and a woman\'s place in society. This fascinating book should be read by parents (both new and soon to be) as well as anyone interested in child development orhuman evolutio *Running Time => 10 hrs. and 3 mins.*The idea that evolution enables specific behaviors to come naturally to anyone is a profoundly unhelpful way to understand ourselves and our species.A great deal of evidence surrounding what humans are like and the conditions that shape human evolution recently surfaced, and it\'s time to re-examine the origins of the human species. In the past seven million years, many humans have moved away from the tropical forests of Africa and into air-conditioned homes. While the journeys our ancestors took are still being investigated today, we can piece together a significant portion of the narrative using a wide range of disciplines. Lesley Newson and Peter J. Richerson, a husband-and-wife team with backgrounds in biology from the University of California, Davis, have assembled a story of the evolutionary journey of humankind.In \'THE STORY OF US\', Newson and Richerson illustrate the process of gene-culture coevolution by taking readers through seven stages of human evolution. They begin with the life of the ape seven million years ago, moving through and beyond the modern homosapien. Newson and Richerson reveal how life has changed throughout time, offering narrative sections in addition to the hard science to illustrate the problems our ancestors faced and what they did to overcome them. The book offers insight into the environment, resources, culture, and more, making it easy for readers to imagine what life was like at different stages throughout human history.Not only does \'THE STORY OF US\' depict how complex networks of caring, sharing, and competition have developed over time, but the book also delves into the creation of culture. The resulting book explains why the human psyche is more malleable than any other animal\'s on our earth.©2020 Lesley Newson, Pete Richerson (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books Evolution of Human Behavior is the first text to synthesize and compare the major proposals for human behavioral evolution from an anthropological perspective. Ideal for courses in the evolution of human behavior, human evolutionary ecology, evolutionary psychology, and biologicalanthropology, this unique volume reviews a wide array of approaches--including human behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, memetics, and gene-culture co-evolution--on how and why humans evolved behaviorally. Its overview of current and emerging theoretical practices and perspectives offers anovel resource for both students and practitioners.Author Agustin Fuentes incorporates recent innovations in evolutionary theory with emerging perspectives from genomic approaches, the current fossil record, and ethnographic studies. He examines basic assumptions about why humans behave as they do, the facts of human evolution, patterns ofevolutionary change in a global environmental-temporal context, and the interconnected roles of cooperation and conflict in human history. The net result is a text that moves toward a more holistic understanding of the patterns of human evolution and a more integrated perspective on the evolution ofhuman behavior.Features*Accessible, student-friendly writing style offers a concise survey of human behavioral evolution for anthropology and psychology undergraduates*Pedagogical aids--including summary charts and tables, suggested readings, and a glossary of key terms--enhance the text*Provides extensive tabular charts comparing the components of the major perspectives and proposals in human behavioral evolution to aid students\' understanding of the material*Illustrative and contemporary examples of research in the area of human behavior engage students In Becoming Human, noted anthropologist and renaissance man Ian Tattersall explores what makes us uniquely human, the qualities that set us apart from our ancestors, and the significance of our knowledge. A worldwide tour of discovery, Tattersall takes the reader from 30,000-year-old cave paintings in France and anthropological digs in Africa, to examining human behavior in a New York restaurant. And by offering wisdom gleaned from fossil remains, primate behavior, prehistoric art, and archaeology, Tattersall presents a stunning picture of where humankind evolved, how Darwin\'s theories have changed, and what we reliably know about modern-day human\'s capacity for love, language, and thought. Widely praised in the media, and an Amazon.com Top-10 bestseller, Becoming Human is an amazing trip into the past and into the future. This is the first comprehensive history of human-computer interaction (HCI). Whether you are a user-experience professional or an academic researcher whether you identify with computer science human factors information systems information science design or communication you can discover how your experiences fit into the expanding field of HCI. You can determine where to look for relevant information in other fields--and where you won\'t find it.This book describes the different fields that have participated in improving our digital tools.It is organized chronologically describing major developments across fields in each period. Computer use has changed radically but many underlying forces are constant. Technology has changed rapidly human nature very little. An irresistible force meets an immovable object. The exponential rate of technological change gives us little time to react before technology moves on. Patterns and trajectories described in this book provide your best chance to anticipate what could come next.We have reached a turning point. Tools that we built for ourselves to use are increasingly influencing how we use them in ways that are planned and sometimes unplanned. The book ends with issues worthy of consideration as we explore the new world that we and our digital partners are shaping.