Recent developments in behavioural neuroscience and genomics are providing exciting new tools for understanding mammalian evolution. Drawing on a range of disciplines including genomic reprogramming, immunology, genomic imprinting, placentation and brain development, this book examines the leading role played by the mother's genome and epigenome in the successful evolutionary progression of humans from ancestral mammals. Keverne begins by discussing the historic context of the perceived dominance of males and the patriline, before arguing that it is instead the matriline that exerts the dominant influence in shaping the evolution of our brain development and behaviour, especially the co-adaptive development of brain and placenta. Presenting a balanced outlook on the development of sex differences and an alternative to traditional views, Beyond Sex Differences will be of interest to anyone studying and researching mother and infant development.

This seminal study of human bone forms Dr. Mees reveals the skeleton as an articulate work of art. But who is the artist? Using a blend of phenomenological observations and artistic intuition, the author carefully explores the anatomical facts of the human skeleton, with the beauty of many bones are impressively described and illustrated through numerous parallel photographs and illustrations.

The astonishing new story of human origins Was Darwin wrong when he traced our origins to Africa? The Real Planet of the Apes makes the explosive claim that it was in Europe, not Africa, where apes evolved the most important hallmarks of our human lineage. In this compelling and accessible book, David Begun, one of the world's leading paleoanthropologists, transports readers to an epoch in the remote past when the Earth was home to many migratory populations of ape species. Begun draws on the latest astonishing discoveries in the fossil record, as well as his own experiences conducting field expeditions, to offer a sweeping evolutionary history of great apes and humans. He tells the story of how one of the earliest members of our evolutionary group evolved from lemur-like monkeys in the primeval forests of Africa. Begun then vividly describes how, over the next ten million years, these hominoids expanded into Europe and Asia and evolved climbing and hanging adaptations, longer maturation times, and larger brains. As the climate deteriorated in Europe, these apes either died out or migrated south, reinvading the African continent and giving rise to the lineages of African great apes, and, ultimately, humans. Presenting startling new insights, The Real Planet of the Apes fundamentally alters our understanding of human origins.

Humans are rather weak when compared with many other animals. We are not particular fast and have no natural weapons. Yet Homo sapiens currently number nearly 7.5 billion and are set to rise to nearly 10 billion by the middle of this century. We have influenced almost every part of the Earth system and as a consequence are changing the global environmental and evolutionary trajectory of the Earth. So how did we become the worlds apex predator and take over the planet? Fundamental to our success is our intelligence, not only individually but more importantly collectively. But why did evolution favour the brainy ape? Given the calorific cost of running our large brains, not to mention the difficulties posed for childbirth, this bizarre adaptation must have given our ancestors a considerable advantage. In this book Mark Maslin brings together the latest insights from hominin fossils and combines them with evidence of the changing landscape of the East African Rift Valley to show how all these factors led to selection pressures that favoured our ultrasocial brains. Astronomy, geology, climate, and landscape all had a part to play in making East Africa the cradle of humanity and allowing us to dominate the planet.

The aim of this book is to provide a new insight on Neanderthal behaviour using the data recovered in level J of Romani rockshelter (north-eastern Spain). Due to the sedimentary dynamics that formed the Romani deposit, the occupation layers are characterized by a high temporal resolution, which makes it easier to interprete the archaeological data in behavioural terms. In addition, the different analytical domains(geoarchaeology, lithic technology, zooarchaeology, taphonomy, anthracology, palaeontology) are addressed from a spatial perspective that is basic to understand human behaviour, but also to evaluate the behavioural inferences in the framework of the archaeological formation processes. "

The culmination of more than a decade of fieldwork and related study, this unique book uses analyses of perimortem taphonomy in Ice Age Siberia to propose a new hypothesis for the peopling of the New World. The authors present evidence based on examinations of more than 9000 pieces of human and carnivore bone from 30 late Pleistocene archaeological and palaeontological sites, including cave and open locations, which span more than 2000 miles from the Ob River in the West to the Sea of Japan in the East. The observed bone damage signatures suggest that the conventional prehistory of Siberia needs revision and, in particular, that cave hyenas had a significant influence on the lives of Ice Age Siberians. The findings are supported by more than 250 photographs, which illustrate the bone damage described and provide a valuable insight into the context and landscape of the fieldwork for those unfamiliar with Siberia.

Originally published during the early part of the twentieth century, the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature were designed to provide concise introductions to a broad range of topics. They were written by experts for the general reader and combined a comprehensive approach to knowledge with an emphasis on accessibility. Prehistoric Man by W. L. H. Duckworth was first published in 1912, and reissued as this second edition during the same year. The volume contains an account of the earliest phases in the development of humanity, beginning with the precursors of Paleolithic man and ending at the time of the Aurignacian culture.

The discovery of the first species of African hominin, Australopithecus africanus, from Taung, South Africa in 1924, launched the study of fossil man in Africa. New discoveries continue to confirm the importance of this region to our understanding of human evolution. Outlining major developments since Raymond Dart's description of the Taung skull and, in particular, the impact of the pioneering work of Phillip V. Tobias, this book will be a valuable companion for students and researchers of human origins. It presents a summary of the current state of palaeoanthropology, reviewing the ideas that are central to the field, and provides a perspective on how future developments will shape our knowledge about hominin emergence in Africa. A wide range of key themes are covered, from the earliest fossils from Chad and Kenya, to the origins of bipedalism and the debate about how and where modern humans evolved and dispersed across Africa.

Just 28,000 years ago, the blink of an eye in geological time, the last of Neanderthals died out in their last outpost, in caves near Gibraltar. Thanks to cartoons and folk accounts we have a distorted view of these other humans - for that is what they were. We think of them as crude and clumsy and not very bright, easily driven to extinction by the lithe, smart modern humans that came out of Africa some 100,000 years ago. But was it really as simple as that? Clive Finlayson reminds us that the Neanderthals were another kind of human, and their culture was not so very different from that of our own ancestors. In this book, he presents a wider view of the events that led to the migration of the moderns into Europe, what might have happened during the contact of the two populations, and what finally drove the Neanderthals to extinction. It is a view that considers climate, ecology, and migrations of populations, as well as culture and interaction. His conclusion is that the destiny of the Neanderthals and the Moderns was sealed by ecological factors and contingencies. It was a matter of luck that we survived and spread while the Neanderthals dwindled and perished. Had the climate not changed in our favour some 50 million years ago, things would have been very different. There is much current research interest in Neanderthals, much of it driven by attempts to map some of their DNA. But it's not just a question of studying the DNA. The rise and fall of populations is profoundly moulded by the larger scale forces of climate and ecology. And it is only by taking this wider view that we can fully understand the course of events that led to our survival and their demise. The fact that Neanderthals survived until virtually yesterday makes our relationship with them and their tragedy even more poignant. They almost made it, after all.

Human Paleobiology provides a unifying framework for the study of human populations, both past and present, to a range of changing environments. It integrates evidence from studies of human adaptability, comparative primatology, and molecular genetics to document consistent measures of genetic distance between subspecies, species and other taxonomic groupings. These findings support the interpretation of the biology of humans in terms of a smaller number of populations characterised by higher levels of genetic continuity than previously hypothesised. Using this as a basis, Robert Eckhardt then goes on to analyse problems in human paleobiology including phenotypic differentiation, patterns of species range expansion and phyletic succession in terms of the patterns and processes still observable in extant populations. This book will be a challenging and stimulating read for students and researchers interested in human paleobiology or evolutionary anthropology.

Olduvai is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world; indeed, the only Middle Pleistocene site of comparable importance is Choukoutien and Olduvai can show deposits far older. The site has produced a mass of material of the highest archaeological and palaeontology importance and in this first of five volumes Dr Leakey and his collaborators make their preliminary reports. The story of the excavations initiated by Dr Leakey in 1951 is well known. Their purpose was to locate and uncover a series of living-floors of early Hand-axe man and, if possible, of the preceding Olduwan culture. The discoveries were of striking and far-reaching importance. They included, besides a mass of tools and artefacts, small animal and human remains and the famous skull of Zinjanthropus boisei, the earliest tool-making man. Against this background Leakey and his collaborators discuss the geological evidence, its relation to the fauna and other fossil evidence, the problems of climatic sequence and the use of potassium-argon dating. The purpose of this volume is to provide a context in which the fossil human remains and the Stone Age cultural sequence at Olduvai can be studied.

At Olduvai Gorge natural erosion exposed a deep series of superimposed geological beds containing rich artefact and fossil assemblages spanning the last 1.8 million years. The sire ot famous as a rsult of excavations conducted there since 1951 under the direction of Mary Leakey and her husband, the late Louis Leakey. This volume, written largely by Mary Leakey herself, is the last of the reports and records the archaeological finds in the upper part of the Olduvai sequence from excavations carried out from the end of 1968 until 1971. The period covered here is from about 1.2 to 0.4 million years ago and th efinds include artefacts and faunal remains excavated from sites in beds II, IV na the Masek beds. The volume follows on from the archaeological record in beds I and II published in volume 3 of the series.

Studies of brain evolution have moved rapidly in recent years, building on the pioneering research of Harry J. Jerison. This book provides state-of-the-art reviews of primate (including human) brain evolution. The volume is divided into two sections, the first offers new perspectives on the developmental, physiological, dietary, and behavioral correlates of brain enlargement. However, it has long been recognized that brains do not merely enlarge globally as they evolve, but that their cortical and internal organization also changes in a process known as reorganization. Species-specific adaptations therefore have neurological substrates that depend on more than just overall brain size. The second section explores these neurological underpinnings for the senses, adaptations, and cognitive abilities that are important for primates. With a prologue by Stephen J. Gould and an epilogue by Harry J. Jerison, this is an important new reference work for all those working on primate brain evolution.

Paleodemography is the field of enquiry that attempts to identify demographic parameters from past populations (usually skeletal samples) derived from archaeological contexts, and then to make interpretations regarding the health and well-being of those populations. However, paleodemographic theory relies on several assumptions that cannot easily be validated by the researcher, and if incorrect, can lead to large errors or biases. In this book, physical anthropologists, mathematical demographers and statisticians tackle these methodological issues for reconstructing demographic structure for skeletal samples. Topics discussed include how skeletal morphology is linked to chronological age, assessment of age from the skeleton, demographic models of mortality and their interpretation, and biostatistical approaches to age structure estimation from archaeological samples. This work will be of immense importance to anyone interested in paleodemography, including biological and physical anthropologists, demographers, geographers, evolutionary biologists and statisticians.

The contribution of Neandertals to the biological and cultural emergence of early modern humans remains highly debated in anthropology. Particularly controversial is the long-held view that Neandertals in Western Europe were replaced 30,000 to 40,000 years ago by early modern humans expanding out of Africa. This book contributes to this debate by exploring the diets and foraging patterns of both Neandertals and early modern humans. Eugene Morin examines the faunal remains from Saint-Cesaire in France, which contains an exceptionally long and detailed chronological sequence, as well as genetic, anatomical and other archaeological evidence to shed new light on the problem of modern human origins.

From emails to social media, from instant messaging to political memes, the way we produce and transmit culture is radically changing. Understanding the consequences of the massive diffusion of digital media is of the utmost importance, both from the intellectual and the social point of view. 'Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age' proposes that a specific discipline - cultural evolution - provides an excellent framework to analyse our digital age. Cultural evolution is a vibrant, interdisciplinary, and increasingly productive scientific framework that aims to provide a naturalistic and quantitative explanation of culture. In the book the author shows how cultural evolution offers both a sophisticated view of human behaviour, grounded in cognitive science and evolutionary theory, and a strong quantitative and experimental methodology. The book examines in depth various topics that directly originate from the application of cultural evolution research to digital media. Is online social influence radically different from previous forms of social influence? Do digital media amplify the effects of popularity and celebrity influence? What are the psychological forces that favour the spread of online misinformation? What are the effects of the hyper-availability of information online on cultural cumulation? The cultural evolutionary perspective provides novel insights, and a relatively encouraging take on the overall effects of our online activities on our culture. Cultural Evolution is an area of rapidly growing interest, and this timely book will be important reading for students and researchers in the fields of psychology, anthropology, cognitive science, and the media.

Argues that the struggle over income, wealth, status and privilege-inequality-has been the principal, defining issue in human history and provides a novel framework for understanding inequality today Whereas President Barack Obama declared inequality as the defining issue of our time, in The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality, Jon D. Wisman claims more: it is the defining issue of all human history. The struggle over inequality has been the underlying force driving human history's unfolding. Drawing on the dynamics of inequality, Wisman re-interprets economic history and society. Beyond according inequality the central role in history, this book is novel in two other respects: First, transcending the general failure of social scientists and historians to anchor their work in explicit theories of human behaviour, this book grounds the origins and dynamics of inequality in evolutionary psychology, or more specifically, Darwin's theory of sexual selection. Second, this book accords central importance to ideology in legitimating inequality, a role typically inadequately addressed by social scientists and historians. Because of the central role of inequality in history, inequality's explosion over the past forty years has not been an anomaly. It is a return to the political dynamics by which elites have, since the rise of the state, taken practically everything for themselves, leaving all others with little more than the means with which to survive. Due to elites' persuasive ideology, even after workers in advanced capitalist countries gained the franchise to become the overwhelming majority of voters, inequality continued to increase. Sweeping and provocative, Jon D. Wisman presents a fresh perspective on why economic inequality exists and how its dynamics have shaped human history.

This book puts Cheddar Man into a wider archaeological context and explains the scientific detective work behind the headlines which made him an international celebrity nine millennia after his death.

Human life, and how we came to be, is one of the greatest scientific and philosophical questions of our time. This compact and accessible book presents a modern view of human evolution. Written by a leading authority, it lucidly and engagingly explains not only the evolutionary process, but the technologies currently used to unravel the evolutionary past and emergence of Homo sapiens. By separating the history of palaeoanthropology from current interpretation of the human fossil record, it lays numerous misconceptions to rest, and demonstrates that human evolution has been far from the linear struggle from primitiveness to perfection that we've been led to believe. It also presents a coherent scenario for how Homo sapiens contrived to cross a formidable cognitive barrier to become an extraordinary and unprecedented thinking creature. Elegantly illustrated, Understanding Human Evolution is for anyone interested in the complex and tangled story of how we came to be.

A. Bowdoin Van Riper provides an account of how Victorian scientists raised and resolved the question of human antiquity. During the early part of the 19th century, scientists divided the history of the earth into a series of "former worlds," populated by mammoths and other prehistoric animals, and a "modern world," in which humans lived. According to this view, the human race was no older than 6000 years. The discovery of tools with mammoth bones, however, prompted a group of British geologists to argue in 1859 that the origin of humankind dated back to prehistoric times. The idea of prehistoric human origins threatened long-cherished religious beliefs and set off an intense debate among scientists as well as members of the clergy and the educated public. Van Riper chronicles this debate within the context of Victorian science, showing how the notion of human antiquity forced Victorians to redefine their assumptions about human evolution and the relationship of science to Christianity. The new study of human prehistory also crossed the boundaries of scientific disciplines, and the once-distinct fields of geology, archaeology and anthropology were drawn together to study early human life. Van Riper shows how, from the beginning, the study of human prehistory was an interdisciplinary endeavour.

The study of human evolution is advancing rapidly. Newly discovered fossil evidence is adding ever more pieces to the puzzle of our past, whilst revolutionary technological advances in the study of ancient DNA are completely reshaping theories of early human populations and migrations. In this Very Short Introduction Bernard Wood traces the history of paleoanthropology from its beginnings in the eighteenth century to the very latest fossil finds. In this new edition he discusses how Ancient DNA studies have revolutionized how we view the recent (post-550 ka) human evolution, and the process of speciation. The combination of ancient and modern human DNA has contributed to discoveries of new taxa, as well as the suggestion of 'ghost' taxa whose fossil records still remain to be discovered. Considering the contributions of related sciences such as paleoclimatology, geochronology, systematics, genetics, and developmental biology, Wood explores our latest understandings of our own evolution. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The discovery of the first species of African hominin, Australopithecus africanus, from Taung, South Africa in 1924, launched the study of fossil man in Africa. New discoveries continue to confirm the importance of this region to our understanding of human evolution. Outlining major developments since Raymond Dart's description of the Taung skull and, in particular, the impact of the pioneering work of Phillip V. Tobias, this book will be a valuable companion for students and researchers of human origins. It presents a summary of the current state of palaeoanthropology, reviewing the ideas that are central to the field, and provides a perspective on how future developments will shape our knowledge about hominin emergence in Africa. A wide range of key themes are covered, from the earliest fossils from Chad and Kenya, to the origins of bipedalism and the debate about how and where modern humans evolved and dispersed across Africa.

The author's original aim in writing this book was to chronicle the story of a very specific debate in human evolutionary studies that took place between the late 1880s and the 1930s - the 'eolith' debate that had to do with small, natural stones whose shape and edges suggested to our earliest ancestors their use as tools, either as they were, or with a small amount of chipping to the stone's edge, a process called 'retouch'. These were the most primitive of tools, thought to date to the very beginning of human cultural evolution, and therefore suited to our very earliest ancestors. The more the author researched this topic the more he realised that its explanation was rooted in a number of research questions which today are considered separate subjects, and, gradually, a book that was to be about a forgotten Palaeolithic debate became a book that was just as much about 'Morlocks', stone tools, racial difference, and the Anthropological Society of London. The major themes of this study include: Apart from interconnectivity itself, the development of Palaeolithic archaeology, its relationship with the study of human physical anthropology in Britain and, to a much lesser extent, on the Continent; The links between these and the study of race and racial origins; The question of human origins itself; The link with geological developments in climate and glacial studies; The public perception of the whole 'origins' question and its relationship with 'race'; How the public got its information on origins-related questions, and in what form this was presented to them; a review of the opening phase of the eolith debate (1889-1895/6) as a logical extension of developments in a number of these areas (e.g. Victorian science fiction). This fascinating book incorporates original research with synthesis and overview, and at the same time presents original perspectives derived from the author's overall arrangement of the material. While the targeted readership includes postgraduates and third-year undergraduates, the work is very much intended as accessible to the non-academic reader wanting to know more about a subject that (re)touches on everyone. This book explores the development of human origins as a scientific debate in the years after 1859. drawing on archaeology, anthropology and human palaeontology, it sets the emerging discipline of Palaeolithic studies in its broader social and intellectual context, and shows how in its first forty years the understanding of the Palaeolithic adapted to profound changes in the scientific knowledge of the origin of our species

Humans are rather weak when compared with many other animals. We are not particularly fast and have no natural weapons. Yet Homo sapiens currently number nearly 7.5 billion and are set to rise to nearly 10 billion by the middle of this century. We have influenced almost every part of the Earth system and as a consequence are changing the global environmental and evolutionary trajectory of the Earth. So how did we become the worlds apex predator and take over the planet? Fundamental to our success is our intelligence, not only individually but more importantly collectively. But why did evolution favour the brainy ape? Given the calorific cost of running our large brains, not to mention the difficulties posed for childbirth, this bizarre adaptation must have given our ancestors a considerable advantage. In this book Mark Maslin brings together the latest insights from hominin fossils and combines them with evidence of the changing landscape of the East African Rift Valley to show how all these factors led to selection pressures that favoured our ultrasocial brains. Astronomy, geology, climate, and landscape all had a part to play in making East Africa the cradle of humanity and allowing us to dominate the planet.

A major new theory of why human intelligence has not evolved in other species The Human Evolutionary Transition offers a unified view of the evolution of intelligence, presenting a bold and provocative new account of how animals and humans have followed two powerful yet very different evolutionary paths to intelligence. This incisive book shows how animals rely on robust associative mechanisms that are guided by genetic information, which enable animals to sidestep complex problems in learning and decision making but ultimately limit what they can learn. Humans embody an evolutionary transition to a different kind of intelligence, one that relies on behavioral and mental flexibility. The book argues that flexibility is useless to most animals because they lack sufficient opportunities to learn new behavioral and mental skills. Humans find these opportunities in lengthy childhoods and through culture. Blending the latest findings in fields ranging from psychology to evolutionary anthropology, The Human Evolutionary Transition draws on computational analyses of the problems organisms face, extensive overviews of empirical data on animal and human learning, and mathematical modeling and computer simulations of hypotheses about intelligence. This compelling book demonstrates that animal and human intelligence evolved from similar selection pressures while identifying bottlenecks in evolution that may explain why human-like intelligence is so rare.