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Thinking Big - How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R485
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Thinking Big - How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind (Hardcover)
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List price R611
Loot Price R485
Discovery Miles 4 850
You Save R126 (21%)
Supplier out of stock. If you add this item to your wish list we will let you know when it becomes available.
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We are at a pivotal moment in understanding our remote ancestry and
its implications for how we live today. The barriers to what we can
know about our distant relatives have been falling as a result of
scientific advance, such as decoding the genomes of humans and
Neanderthals, and bringing together different perspectives to
answer common questions. These collaborations have brought new
knowledge and suggested fresh concepts to examine. The results have
shaken the old certainties. The results are profound; not just for
the study of the past but for appreciating why we conduct our
social lives in ways, and at scales, that are familiar to all of
us. But such basic familiarity raises a dilemma. When surrounded by
the myriad technical and cultural innovations that support our
global, urbanized lifestyles we can lose sight of the small social
worlds we actually inhabit and that can be traced deep into our
ancestry. So why do we need art, religion, music, kinship, myths,
and all the other facets of our over-active imaginations if the
reality of our effective social worlds is set by a limit of some
one hundred and fifty partners (Dunbar s number) made of family,
friends, and useful acquaintances? How could such a social
community lead to a city the size of London or a country as large
as China? Do we really carry our hominin past into our human
present? It is these small worlds, and the link they allow to the
study of the past that forms the central point in this book."
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