The Evolution of Culture: An Interdisciplinary View - Softcover

Dunbar, Robin; Knight, Chris; Power, Camilla

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0748610766 ISBN 13: 9780748610761

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 1999

Synopsis

This book explores the ways in which contemporary evolutionary thinking might inform the study of the peculiarly human phenomenon of symbolic culture, including language, ritual, religion, religion and art. It draws together contributions from biologists, linguists, anthropologists and archaeologists in order to establish common ground where collaboration and interaction will be especially productive and challenging in the study of those fundamental aspects of our biology that makes us human.* Multidisciplinary* An evolutionary approach to culture

About this title

About the Authors

Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford

Chris Knight is Reader in Anthropology at the University of East London.

From the Back Cover

This book seeks to explain the origins, evolution and character of human culture, from language, art, music and ritual to the use of technology and the beginnings of social, political and economic behaviour. It is concerned not only with where and when human culture evolved, but also asks how and why.

The book draws together contributions by archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists and psychologists. By integrating evolutionary biology with the psychologi cal, social and cultural sciences, it shows how contemporary evolutionary think ing can inform the study of the peculiarly human phenomenon of symbolic culture , and calls into question the gulf currently separating the natural from the cultural sciences. Human capacities for culture, it argues, evolved through stand ard processes of natural and sexual selection, and can properly be analysed as biological adaptations.

The book is clearly organised into parts, each separately introduced. It is ful ly referenced and indexed, and contains a guide to further reading. It has been written to be accessible to the growing multidisciplinary readership now asking questions about human origins.

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0748610766
• ISBN 13: 9780748610761
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256