Thinking Big: How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind - Softcover

Gamble, Clive; Gowlett, John; Dunbar, Robin

 
9780500293829: Thinking Big: How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0500293821 ISBN 13: 9780500293829
Verlag: Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

When and how did the brains of our hominin ancestors become human minds? When and why did our capacity for language, art, music and dance evolve? This pathbreaking book proposes that it was the need for early humans to live in ever-larger social groups over greater distancesthe ability to think bigthat drove the enlargement of the human brain and the development of the human mind. This social brain hypothesis, put forward by evolutionary psychologists such as Robin Dunbar, can be tested against archaeological and fossil evidence.The conclusions herethe fruits of over seven years of researchbuild on the insight that modern humans live in effective social groups of about 150 (so-called Dunbars number), some three times the size of those of apes and our early ancestors. We live in a world dominated by social networking. Yet our virtual contact lists, whether on Facebook or Twitter, are on average no bigger than Dunbars number.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Clive Gamble is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Southampton. His publications include Origins and Revolutions: Human Identity in Earliest Prehistory (2007) and Archaeology: The Basics (2007).

John Gowlett is Professor of Archaeology at Liverpool University. He has published numerous articles and contributions within edited volumes.

Robin Dunbar is head of the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group at the University of Oxford. He has published numerous books including Grooming Gossip and the Evolution of Language (2004), The Human Story (2005), How Many Friends Does One Person Need?: Dunbar's Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks (2011), The Science of Love (2012) and The Science of Love and Betrayal (2013).

Von der hinteren Coverseite

When and how did the brains of our hominin ancestors become human minds? When and why did our capacity for language or art, music and dance evolve? It is the contention of this pathbreaking and provocative book that it was the need for early humans to live in ever-larger social groups, and to maintain social relations over ever-greater distances - the ability to 'think big' - that drove the enlargement of the human brain and the development of the human mind. This 'social brain hypothesis', put forward by evolutionary psychologists such as Robin Dunbar, one of the authors of this book, can be tested against archaeological and fossil evidence, as archaeologists Clive Gamble and John Gowlett show in the second part of Thinking Big. Along the way, the three authors touch on subjects as diverse and diverting as the switch from finger-tip grooming to vocal grooming or the crucial importance of making fire for the lengthening of the social day. As this remarkable book shows, it seems we still inhabit social worlds that originated deep in our evolutionary past - by the fireside, in the hunt and on the grasslands of Africa.

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Verlag
Thames & Hudson Ltd
Erscheinungsdatum
2018
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0500293821
ISBN 13 
9780500293829
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
238
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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