Early Human Behaviour in a Global Context will be of use to students and professionals who are interested in prehistory, Paleolithic archaeology, and paleoanthropology. Those interested in our ancestors and their place in the natural world will also benefit from the information presented in this book. Chapters focus on: * the nature of archaeological evidence * stone tool technology * subsistence practices * settlement distributions.

The Neanderthal is among the most mysterious relatives of Homo sapiens: Was he a dull, club-swinging muscleman, or a being with developed social behaviour and the ability to speak, to plan precisely, and even to develop views on the afterlife?

For many, the Neanderthals are an example of primitive humans, but new discoveries suggest that this image needs to be revised. Half a million years ago in Ice Age Europe, there emerged people who managed to cope well with the difficult climate Neanderthal Man. They formed an organized society, hunted Mammoths, and could make fire. They were able to pass on knowledge; they cared for the old and the handicapped, burying their dead, and placing gifts on their graves. Yet, they became extinct, despite their cultural abilities.

This richly illustrated book, written for general audiences, provides a competent look at the history, living conditions, and culture of the Neanderthal.

The Neanderthal is among the most mysterious relatives of Homo sapiens: Was he a dull, club-swinging muscleman, or a being with developed social behaviour and the ability to speak, to plan precisely, and even to develop views on the afterlife?

For many, the Neanderthals are an example of primitive humans, but new discoveries suggest that this image needs to be revised. Half a million years ago in Ice Age Europe, there emerged people who managed to cope well with the difficult climate a " Neanderthal Man. They formed an organized society, hunted Mammoths, and could make fire. They were able to pass on knowledge; they cared for the old and the handicapped, burying their dead, and placing gifts on their graves. Yet, they became extinct, despite their cultural abilities.

This richly illustrated book, written for general audiences, provides a competent look at the history, living conditions, and culture of the Neanderthal.

The domestication of plants and animals was one of the greatest steps forward taken by mankind. Although it was first achieved long ago, we still need to know what led to it and how, and even when, it took place. Only when we have this understanding will we be able to appreciate fully the important social and economic consequences of this step. Even more important, an understanding of this achievement is basic to any insight into modern man's relationship to his habitat. In the last decade or two a change in methods of investigating these events has taken place, due to the mutual realization by archaeologists and natural scientists that each held part of the key and neither alone had the whole. Inevitably, perhaps, the floodgate that was opened has resulted in a spate of new knowledge, which is scattered in the form of specialist reports in diverse journals.

This volume results from presentations at the Institute of Archaeology, London University, discussing the domestication and exploitation of plants and animals. Workers in the archaeological, anthropological, and biological fields attempted to bridge the gap between their respective disciplines through personal contact and discussion. Modern techniques and the result of their application to the classical problems of domestication, selection, and spread of cereals and of cattle were discussed, but so were comparable problems in plants and animals not previously considered in this context.

Although there were differing opinions on taxonomic classification, the editors have standardized and simplified the usage throughout this book. In particular, they have omitted references to authorities and adopted the binomial classification for both botanical and zoological names. They followed this procedure in all cases except where sub-specific differences are discussed and also standardized orthography of sites.

"Peter J. Ucko" is professor emeritus of archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. His research interests include the history of archaeology, prehistoric art and images, and interpretation of archaeological collections and site displays.

"G. W. Dimbleby" (1917-2000) was Chair of Human Environment at the Institute of Archaeology, London University. He was the founding editor of the "Journal of Archeological Science." Throughout his life he served on important committees such as Science-based Archaeology Committee of the Science Research Council and the Committee for Rescue Archaeology of the Ancient Monuments Board of England.

A dazzlingly erudite synthesis of history, philosophy, anthropology, genetics, sociology, economics, epidemiology, statistics, and more (Frank Bruni, The New York Times), Blueprint shows why evolution has placed us on a humane path -- and how we are united by our common humanity. For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all of our inventions -- our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations -- we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society. In Blueprint, Nicholas A. Christakis introduces the compelling idea that our genes affect not only our bodies and behaviors, but also the ways in which we make societies, ones that are surprisingly similar worldwide. With many vivid examples -- including diverse historical and contemporary cultures, communities formed in the wake of shipwrecks, commune dwellers seeking utopia, online groups thrown together by design or involving artificially intelligent bots, and even the tender and complex social arrangements of elephants and dolphins that so resemble our own -- Christakis shows that, despite a human history replete with violence, we cannot escape our social blueprint for goodness. In a world of increasing political and economic polarization, it's tempting to ignore the positive role of our evolutionary past. But by exploring the ancient roots of goodness in civilization, Blueprint shows that our genes have shaped societies for our welfare and that, in a feedback loop stretching back many thousands of years, societies are still shaping our genes today.

These papers bring an interdisciplinary approach to bear on what is arguably the central question in the study of human social evolution: how did the simple hunting and foraging bands of the Upper Palaeolithic evolve into the institutionally complex societies of the so-called Neolithic Revolution? The contributors to this volume are leading experts from the fields of archaeology, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and game theory, all of whom share a common evolutionary perspective. The ideas presented here form a major addition to the widespread current interest in evolutionary theory as applied to human behaviour.

This monumental volume in the History of Civilization Series has done a great service to learning in giving a very good outline of the earliest civilization of Europe. It covers the Orient, Crete, the Aegean, Maritime Civilization, Greece, the Balkans, the Danube, Eurasia, Northern Cultures, Forest Cultures, Islands of the Western Mediterranean, Iberia, Alpine Culture, and the British Isles.

Human settlement has often centered around coastal areas and waterways. Until recently, however, archaeologists believed that marine economies did not develop until the end of the Pleistocene, when the archaeological record begins to have evidence of marine life as part of the human diet. This has long been interpreted as a postglacial adaptation, due to the rise in sea level and subsequent decrease in terrestrial resources. Coastal resources, particularly mollusks, were viewed as fallback resources, which people resorted to only when terrestrial resources were scarce, included only as part of a more complex diet.

Recent research has significantly altered this understanding, known as the Broad Spectrum Revolution (BSR) model. The contributions to this volume revise the BSR model, with evidence that coastal resources were an important part of human economies and subsistence much earlier than previously thought, and even the main focus of diets for some Pleistocene and early Holocene hunter-gatherer societies.

With evidence from North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia, this volume comprehensively lends a new understanding to coastal settlement from the Middle Paleolithic to the Middle Holocene.

The subject of the present volume, in essence is the hand and hand's extensions. We cannot insist too strongly that in the evolution of life the "decisive moment" arrived when a living being - who became man - adopted the erect attitude, thus freeing his hands, and when the industrious activity was inauguarted which this freedom made possible. In the use of the hand as an instrument, we have the manifestation of an important physical progress and the promise of further progress.

Now widely recognised as a standard in the field, the Encyclopedia of Human Evolution and Prehistory provides the most complete context possible for understanding the 65-million-year story of humankind's origins.
The Encyclopedia gathers the work of 49 internationally recognised scholars, each a leading authority writing under the guidance of a distinguished team of editors from the American Museum of Natural History. They have prepared over 800 entries, ranging from brief definitions of technical terms to in depth, lengthy essays on broad topics such as evolutionary theory, genetics and Palaeolithic archaeology. This range makes the Encyclopedia a suitable tool for scholars and readers in a variety of fields, including archaeology, palaeontology, primateology, and genetics.
Each entry offers an authoritative and objective explanation of its topic, written in clear, concise language. In discussions of contested and controversial topics, the contributors present a full range of opinion, with extensive cross-references.

Why do people single out gold, sapphires, diamonds, and other minerals as particularly "precious"? What makes precious minerals "precious"? Drawing from ethnographic and cross-cultural research, this collection of anthropological essays and case studies answers these questions by exploring humans' multifaceted relationships with the minerals they deem "precious." The Anthropology of Precious Minerals addresses the entanglement of humans and minerals, with a particular focus on the practices of scrappers, miners, and hunters as they work to extract value. The editors draw from history, archaeology, and ethnography, and remind us that "preciousness" must always be understood in relation to complex cultural, political-economic, and semiotic systems of value.

We live in a world surrounded by remarkable cultural achievements of human kind. Almost every day we hear of new innovations in technology, in medicine and in the arts which remind us that humans are capable of remarkable creativity. But what is human creativity? The modern world provides a tiny fraction of cultural diversity and the evidence for human creativity, far more can be seen by looking back into prehistory. The book examines how our understanding of human creativity can be extended by exploring this phenomenon during human evolution and prehistory. The book offers unique perspectives on the nature of human creativity from archaeologists who are concerned with long term patterns of cultural change and have access to quite different types of human behaviour than that which exists today. It asks whether humans are the only creative species, or whether our extinct relatives such as Homo habilis and the Neanderthals also displayed creative thinking. It explores what we can learn about the nature of human creativity from cultural developments during prehistory, such as changes in the manner in which the dead were buried, monuments constructed, and the natural world exploited. In doing so, new light is thrown on these cultural developments and the behaviour of our prehistoric ancestors. By examining the nature of creativity during human evolution and prehistory these archaeologists, supported by contributions from psychology, computer science and social anthropology, show that human creativity is a far more diverse and complex phenomena than simply flashes of genius by isolated individuals. Indeed they show that unless perspectives from prehistory are taken into account, our understanding of human creativity will be limited and incomplete.

"Thin on the Ground: Neandertal Biology, Archeology and Ecology" synthesizes the current knowledge about our sister species the Neandertals, combining data from a variety of disciplines to reach a cohesive theory behind Neandertal low population densities and relatively low rate of technological innovation. The book highlights and contrasts the differences between Neandertals and early modern humans and explores the morphological, physiological, and behavioral adaptive solutions which led to the extinction of the Neandertals and the population expansion of modern humans.

Written by a world recognized expert in physical anthropology, "Thin on the Ground: Neandertal Biology, Archaeology and Ecology" will be a must have title for anyone interested in the rise and fall of the Neandertals.

'A fascinating new analysis of human violence, filled with fresh ideas and gripping evidence from our primate cousins, historical forebears, and contemporary neighbors' Steven Pinker

'A brilliant analysis of the role of aggression in our evolutionary history' Jane Goodall

It may not always seem so, but day-to-day interactions between individual humans are extraordinarily peaceful. That is not to say that we are perfect, just far less violent than most animals, especially our closest relatives, the chimpanzee and their legendarily docile cousins, the Bonobo. Perhaps surprisingly, we rape, maim, and kill many fewer of our neighbours than all other primates and almost all undomesticated animals. But there is one form of violence that humans exceed all other animals in by several degrees: organized proactive violence against other groups of humans. It seems, we are the only animal that goes to war.

In the Goodness Paradox, Richard Wrangham wrestles with this paradox at the heart of human behaviour. Drawing on new research by geneticists, neuroscientists, primatologists, and archaeologists, he shows that what domesticated our species was nothing less than the invention of capital punishment which eliminated the least cooperative and most aggressive among us. But that development is exactly what laid the groundwork for the worst of our atrocities.

The past few years have seen a revolution in our ability to map whole genome DNA from ancient humans. With the ancient DNA revolution, combined with rapid genome mapping of present human populations, has come remarkable insights into our past. This important new data has clarified and added to our knowledge from archaeology and anthropology, helped resolve long-existing controversies, challenged long-held views, and thrown up some remarkable surprises. The emerging picture is one of many waves of ancient human migrations, so that all populations existing today are mixes of ancient ones, as well as in many cases carrying a genetic component from Neanderthals, and, in some populations, Denisovans. David Reich, whose team has been at the forefront of these discoveries, explains what the genetics is telling us about ourselves and our complex and often surprising ancestry. Gone are old ideas of any kind of racial 'purity', or even deep and ancient divides between peoples. Instead, we are finding a rich variety of mixtures. Reich describes the cutting-edge findings from the past few years, and also considers the sensitivities involved in tracing ancestry, with science sometimes jostling with politics and tradition. He brings an important wider message: that we should celebrate our rich diversity, and recognize that every one of us is the result of a long history of migration and intermixing of ancient peoples, which we carry as ghosts in our DNA. What will we discover next?

Early Human Behaviour in a Global Context will be of use to students and professionals who are interested in prehistory, Paleolithic archaeology, and paleoanthropology. Those interested in our ancestors and their place in the natural world will also benefit from the information presented in this book.
Chapters focus on:
* the nature of archaeological evidence
* stone tool technology
* subsistence practices
* settlement distributions.

eBook available with sample pages: EB:0203203275

""a required reading for anyone interested in the economy, ecology, and demography of human societies." "--American Journal of Human Biology ""This excellent book can serve both as a text1/4book and as a scholarly reference." "--American Scientist

World-renowned biohacker and bestselling author Dave Asprey reveals how to maximize your well-being with the minimum effort, by taking control of your body’s operating system.

If you want to lose weight, boost your energy, or sharpen your mind, there are shelves of books offering myriad styles of advice. If you want to build up your strength and cardio fitness, there are plenty of gyms and trainers ready to offer you their guidance. What all of these resources have in common is they offer you a bad deal: a lot of effort for a little payoff. Dave Asprey has found a better way.

In Smarter Not Harder, the proven master of biohacking exposes the surprising secrets of your body’s operating system, or its “MeatOS.” That system is naturally designed to be lazy, which is why sweaty exercise routines and rigid diets produce such limited effects. Dave shows us how to hack the MeatOS and make it do what we want it to do, turning it from obstacle into ally. The key to achieving optimum wellness, he reveals, isn’t about doing more, it’s about doing less—exercising and eating smarter, not harder, and making the body’s built in laziness work for you.

Smarter Not Harder is not a diet nor a fitness plan. It is a system of targeted biohacks aimed at upgrading your metabolic, neurological, and epigenetic systems. Packed with practical, accessible information on better eating; smart workouts that give you more strength and energy in less time; and strategic therapies to reduce stress and boost resilience—Smarter Not Harder will show you how to achieve lasting health in less time.

Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory curates and collects many of the most important publications of anthropological thought spanning the last hundred years, building a strong foundation in both classical and contemporary theory. The sixth edition includes seventeen new readings, with a sharpened focus on public anthropology, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and the Anthropocene. Each piece of writing is accompanied by a short introduction, key terms, study questions, and further readings that elucidate the original text. On its own or together with A History of Anthropological Theory, sixth edition, this anthology offers an unrivalled introduction to the theory of anthropology that reflects not only its history but also the changing nature of the discipline today.

In the early twentieth century, people in the southwestern Pacific nation of Vanuatu experienced rapid population decline, while in the early twenty-first century, they experienced rapid population growth. From colonial governance to postcolonial sovereignty, Moral Figures shows that despite attempts to govern population size and birth, reproduction in Vanuatu continues to exceed bureaucratic economization through Ni-Vanuatu insistence on Indigenous relationalities. Through her examination of how reproduction is made public, Alexandra Widmer demonstrates how population sciences have naturalized a focus on women's fertility and privileged issues of wage labour over women's land access and broader social relations of reproduction. Widmer draws on oral histories with retired village midwives and massage healers on the changes to care for pregnancy and birth, as well as ethnographic research in a village outside the capital of Port Vila. Locating the Pacific Islands in global histories of demographic science and the medicalization of birth, the book presents archival material in a way that emphasizes bureaucratic practices in how colonial documents attempted to render Indigenous relationalities of reproduction governable. While demographic imaginaries and biomedical practices increasingly frame fertility control as an investment in the reproductive health of individual bodies, the Ni-Vanuatu worlds presented in Moral Figures show that relationships between people, land, knowledge, kin, and care make reproduction a distributed and assisted process.

Australopithecus species have been the topic of much debate in palaeoanthropology since Raymond Dart described the first species, Australopithecus africanus, in 1925. This volume synthesizes the geological and paleontological context of the species in East and South Africa; covers individual sites, such as Dikika, Hadar, Sterkfontein, and Malapa; debates the alpha taxonomy of some of the species; and addresses questions regarding the movements of the species across the continent. Additional chapters discuss the genus in terms of sexual dimorphism, diet reconstruction using microwear and isotopic methodologies, postural and locomotor behavior, and ontogeny.

The 150th anniversary of the discovery of the famous Neanderthal fossils gave reason for an international and interdisciplinary symposium in Bonn/Germany. The present book arose from this congress and focuses on multiple aspects of archaeological investigation on Neanderthal lifeways. In-depth studies of top-ranking scientists provide a detailed and comprehensive survey of contemporary research on our Pleistocene relatives. Examinations and debates are embedded in a variety of regions and time frames. Chronology, subsistence, land use, and cultural adaptations among late Neanderthals form the major trajectories of the book. The wide range of approaches involved, leads to an increasing understanding of the facets of and the variability of Neanderthal behavioural patterns. The present volume is complemented by a paleontologically orientated publication of the same congress (edited by Gerd-Christian Weniger and Silvana Condemi).

A comprehensive account of the origins, evolution, and behavior of South and Central American primates New World Monkeys brings to life the beauty of evolution and biodiversity in action among South and Central American primates, who are now at risk. These tree-dwelling rainforest inhabitants display an unparalleled variety in size, shape, hands, feet, tails, brains, locomotion, feeding, social systems, forms of communication, and mating strategies. Primatologist Alfred Rosenberger, one of the foremost experts on these mammals, explains their fascinating adaptations and how they came about. New World Monkeys provides a dramatic picture of the sixteen living genera of New World monkeys and a fossil record that shows that their ancestors have lived in the same ecological niches for up to 20 million years-only to now find themselves imperiled by the extinction crisis. Rosenberger also challenges the argument that these primates originally came to South America from Africa by floating across the Atlantic on a raft of vegetation some 45 million years ago. He explains that they are more likely to have crossed via a land bridge that once connected Western Europe and Canada at a time when many tropical mammals transferred between the northern continents. Based on the most current findings, New World Monkeys offers the first synthesis of decades of fieldwork and laboratory and museum research conducted by hundreds of scientists.

When did the first humans arrive in Britain? Where did they come from? And what did they look like? This is the amazing story of human life in Britain. It begins nearly one million years ago, during the earliest known human occupation, and reveals how humans have periodically lived there ever since. Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story takes readers on an incredible journey through ancient Britain. Drawing on a wealth of evidence from archaeological sites, it reveals which human species lived in Britain during multiple waves of occupation. It describes who they were, what their habitats were like, which animals shared their landscape, and what they did to survive, from the first use of fire to specialised hunting. It shows how Britain's human occupants changed, adapting and often succumbing to dramatically changing climate and landscapes. The story is told by Rob Dinnis and Chris Stringer, two scientists at the forefront of research into our ancient ancestors. Together they describe the discoveries, the key fossil specimens and the science behind these remarkable findings.Written in a lively and engaging style, and fully illustrated with maps, diagrams and photographs, Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story is an invaluable guide to our early human relatives. The book is based on the ground-breaking work of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project and is published to tie in with a major new exhibition opening at the Natural History Museum in February 2014.

This volume reviews the meaning of taxonomic statements and considers our present knowledge regarding the number and characteristics of species among living and extinct primates, including man and his ancestors. They also examine the relationship of behaviour changes and selection pressures in evolutionary sequences. First published in 1964.