In the 1920s an international team of scientists and miners unearthed the richest evidence of human evolution the world had ever seen: Peking Man. After the communist revolution of 1949, Peking Man became a prominent figure in the movement to bring science to the people. In a new state with twin goals of crushing "superstition" and establishing a socialist society, the story of human evolution was the first lesson in Marxist philosophy offered to the masses. At the same time, even Mao's populist commitment to mass participation in science failed to account for the power of popular culture--represented most strikingly in legends about the Bigfoot-like Wild Man--to reshape ideas about human nature.
"The People's Peking Man "is a skilled social history of twentieth-century Chinese paleoanthropology and a compelling cultural--and at times comparative--history of assumptions and debates about what it means to be human. By focusing on issues that push against the boundaries of science and politics, "The People's Peking Man "offers an innovative approach to modern Chinese history and the history of science.

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.

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.

Since the late 1980s the dominant theory of human origins has been that a 'cognitive revolution' (C.50,000 years ago) led to the advent of our species, Homo sapiens. As a result of this revolution our species spread and eventually replaced all existing archaic Homo species, ultimately leading to the superiority of modern humans. Or so we thought. As Clive Finlayson explains, the latest advances in genetics prove that there was significant interbreeding between Modern Humans and the Neanderthals. All non-Africans today carry some Neanderthal genes. We have also discovered aspects of Neanderthal behaviour that indicate that they were not cognitively inferior to modern humans, as we once thought, and in fact had their own rituals and art. Finlayson, who is at the forefront of this research, recounts the discoveries of his team, providing evidence that Neanderthals caught birds of prey, and used their feathers for symbolic purposes. There is also evidence that Neanderthals practised other forms of art, as the recently discovered engravings in Gorham's Cave Gibraltar indicate. Linking all the recent evidence, The Smart Neanderthal casts a new light on the Neanderthals and the "Cognitive Revolution". Finlayson argues that there was no revolution and, instead, modern behaviour arose gradually and independently among different populations of Modern Humans and Neanderthals. Some practices were even adopted by Modern Humans from the Neanderthals. Finlayson overturns classic narratives of human origins, and raises important questions about who we really are.

The concept of the social brain has become a popular topic in the last decade and has generated interest within the research community and contributed to a wide public examination of human culture, nature, mind, and instinct, as well as aspects of social and business organisation. At its core, the hypothesis that our social life drove the dramatic enlargement of our brain, bridges the dimensions of our evolutionary history and our contemporary experience. This has been the focus of a seven-year research project funded by the British Academy, the British Academy Centenary Research Project (otherwise known as the Lucy Project). The main aim of the Lucy Project has been to explore these two axes in an integrated set of studies whose focus was to link archaeology and, in its broadest sense, evolutionary psychology, which offers powerful, new explanatory insights. This approach redresses the past contribution from archaeology towards the study of evolutionary issues and ties evolutionary psychology into the extensive historical data from the past, allowing us to escape the confined timeframe of the comparatively recent human mind. In this volume of published and new papers, the contributors explore the question of just what it is that makes us so different, and why and when these uniquely human capacities evolved.

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 stone tools and fossil bones from the earliest archaeological sites in Africa have been used over the past fifty years to create models that interpret how early hominins lived, foraged, behaved, and communicated, and how early and modern humans evolved. In this book, an international team of archaeologists and primatologists examines early Stone Age tools and bones and uses scientific methods to test alternative hypotheses that explain the archaeological record. By focusing on both lithics and faunal records, this volume presents the most holistic view to date of the archaeology of human origins.

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.

Evolutionary ecology has grown into an exciting and dynamic area of research in the biological sciences. Only recently, however, has there been noteworthy progress in adapting theory, concepts, and models from this fi eld for analysis of human behavior and evolution.

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.

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.

Human Paleobiology provides a unifying framework for the study of past and present human populations 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 among subspecies, species, and other taxonomic groupings. These findings support the interpretation of human biology in terms of fewer number of populations characterized by higher levels of genetic continuity than previously hypothesized. Using this as a basis, Robert Eckhardt goes on to analyze 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.

Hunter-gatherer lifestyles defined the origins of modern humans and for tens of thousands of years were the only form of subsistence our species knew. This changed with the advent of food production, which occurred at different times throughout the world. The chapters in this volume explore the different ways that hunter-gatherer societies around the world adapted to changing social and ecological circumstances while still maintaining a predominantly hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Couched specifically within the framework of resilience theory, the authors use contextualized bioarchaeological analyses of health, diet, mobility, and funerary practices to explore how hunter-gatherers responded to challenges and actively resisted change that diminished the core of their social identity and worldview.

Exactly how modern humans evolved is a subject of intense debate. This book deals with the evolution of modern humans from an archaic ancestor and the differentiation of modern populations from each other. The first section of the book investigates whether modern populations arose from regional archaic hominid groups that were already different from each other, and argues that, in fact, most lines of evidence support a single, recent origin of modern humans in Africa. Dr Lahr then goes on to examine ways in which this diversification could have occurred, given what we know from fossils, archaeological remains and the relationships of existing populations today. This book will be a must for all those interested in human evolution.

This book provides a wealth of information about individual crania, jaws and postcranial remains of Homo erectus and will serve as an important guide to the anatomy. It also documents the history of this extinct human species and suggests a route whereby Homo erectus may have given rise to people more like Homo sapiens.

The chimpanzee of all other living species is our closest relation, with whom we last shared a common ancestor about five million years ago. These African apes make and use a rich and varied kit of tools, and of the primates they are the only consistent and habitual tool-users and tool-makers. Chimpanzees meet the criteria of a culture as originally defined for human beings by socio-cultural anthropologists. They show sex differences in using tools to obtain and to process a variety of plant and animal foods. The technological gap between chimpanzees and human societies that live by foraging (hunter-gatherers) is surprisingly narrow at least for food-getting. Different communities of wild chimpanzees have different tool-kits and not all of this regional and local variation can be explained by the demands of the physical and biotic environments in which they live. Some differences are likely to be customs based on socially derived and symbolically encoded traditions. This book describes and analyzes the tool-use of humankind's nearest living relation. It focuses on field studies of these apes across Africa, comparing their customs to see if they can justifiably be termed cultural. It makes direct comparisons with the material culture of human foraging peoples. The book evaluates the chimpanzee as an evolutionary model, showing that chimpanzee behavior helps us to infer the origins of technology in human prehistory.

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. "

Our understanding of the British Palaeolithic and Mesolithic has changed dramatically over the last three decades, and yet not since H. J. Fleure's A Natural History of Man in Britain (1951) has the New Naturalist Library included a volume focused on the study of early humans and their environment. In this long overdue new book, distinguished archaeologist Nick Ashton uncovers the most recent findings, following the remarkable survival and discovery of bones, stone tools and footprints which allow us to paint a picture of the first human visitors to this remote peninsula of north-west Europe. As part of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project and subsequent research, Ashton is involved in an unrivalled collaborative effort involving archaeologists, palaeontologists, and earth scientists at different British institutes, including the Natural History Museum and the British Museum. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the book explores the latest discoveries such as footprints at Happisburgh, Norfolk that are thought to be nearly one million years old, flint artefacts at Pakefield in Suffolk and mammoth remains at West Runton, among others. These remarkable remnants help our quest to unravel the interactions between the changing environments and their ancient human occupants, as well as their lifestyles and migrations. Early humans colonised our remote corner of the European mainland time and again, despite being faced with ice age climates with far-reaching consequences. Setting the scene on the Norfolk coast almost a million years ago, Ashton tells the story of the fauna, flora and developing geography of Britain against the backdrop of an ever-changing climate. Above all, he explores how early people began as brief visitors to this wild remote land, but over time through better ways of acquiring food and developing new technologies, they began to tame, shape and dominate the countryside we see today.

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.

Human beings depend more on technology than any other animal--the use of tools and weapons is vital to the survival of our species. What processes of biocultural evolution led to this unique dependence? Steven Kuhn turns to the Middle Paleolithic (Mousterian) and to artifacts associated with Neanderthals, the most recent human predecessors. His study examines the ecological, economic, and strategic factors that shaped the behavior of Mousterian tool makers, revealing how these hominids brought technological knowledge to bear on the basic problems of survival. Kuhn's main database consists of assemblages of stone artifacts from four caves and a series of open-air localities situated on the western coast of the Italian peninsula. Variations in the ways stone tools were produced, maintained, and discarded demonstrate how Mousterian hominids coped with the problems of keeping mobile groups supplied with the artifacts and raw materials they used on a daily basis. Changes through time in lithic technology were closely tied to shifting strategies for hunting and collecting food. Some of the most provocative findings of this study stem from observations about the behavioral flexibility of Mousterian populations and the role of planning in foraging and technology. Originally published in 1995. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Tracing mankind's evolution from the birth of life on Earth three billion years ago to the emergence of modern human beings, this volume explains how the field of evolutionary study has been aided by research in comparative anatomy and molecular biology.

Human beings depend more on technology than any other animal--the use of tools and weapons is vital to the survival of our species. What processes of biocultural evolution led to this unique dependence? Steven Kuhn turns to the Middle Paleolithic (Mousterian) and to artifacts associated with Neanderthals, the most recent human predecessors. His study examines the ecological, economic, and strategic factors that shaped the behavior of Mousterian tool makers, revealing how these hominids brought technological knowledge to bear on the basic problems of survival.

Kuhn's main database consists of assemblages of stone artifacts from four caves and a series of open-air localities situated on the western coast of the Italian peninsula. Variations in the ways stone tools were produced, maintained, and discarded demonstrate how Mousterian hominids coped with the problems of keeping mobile groups supplied with the artifacts and raw materials they used on a daily basis. Changes through time in lithic technology were closely tied to shifting strategies for hunting and collecting food. Some of the most provocative findings of this study stem from observations about the behavioral flexibility of Mousterian populations and the role of planning in foraging and technology.

Originally published in 1995.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Discover the second volume of an epic, beautifully illustrated graphic history of humankind, based on Yuval Noah Harari's multi-million copy bestselling phenomenon. When nomadic Homo sapiens settled to live in one place, they started working harder and harder. But why didn't they get a better life in return? In The Pillars of Civilization, Yuval Noah Harari and his companions including Prof. Saraswati and Dr. Fiction travel the length and breadth of human history to investigate how the Agricultural Revolution changed society forever. Discover how wheat took over the world, how war, famine, disease and inequality became a part of the human condition, and why we might only have ourselves to blame. The origins of modern farming are told through Elizabethan tragedy, the changing fortunes of domesticated plants and animals are tracked in the columns of the Daily Business News, and the history of inequality is revealed in a superhero detective story. A radical, witty and colourful retelling of the story of humankind, adapted from Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Volume 2 can be read as a standalone or as a follow-up to Volume 1, The Birth of Humankind. Praise for Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: 'I would recommend Sapiens to anyone who's interested in the history and future of our species.' Bill Gates 'Interesting and provocative... It gives you a sense of how briefly we've been on this Earth' Barack Obama 'Jaw-dropping from the first word to the last... It may be the best book I've ever read' Chris Evans 'Contains a remarkable piece of information on almost every page and reminds us that we should be grateful to be human.' Matt Haig 'Sweeps the cobwebs out of your brain... Radiates power and clarity, making the world strange and new' Sunday Times 'Provocative and fascinating and opinionated...it makes the familiar seem unfamiliar. It altered how I view our species and our world.' Guardian

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.