Human Evolution: Our Brains and Behavior

by Robin Dunbar

Overview

The story of human evolution has fascinated us like no other: we seem to have an insatiable curiosity about who we are and where we have come from. Yet studying the "stones and bones" skirts around what is perhaps the realest, and most relatable, story of human evolution - the social and cognitive changes that gave rise to modern humans.

In Human Evolution: Our Brains and Behavior, Robin Dunbar appeals to the human aspects of every reader, as subjects of mating, friendship, and community are discussed from an evolutionary psychology perspective. With a table of contents ranging from prehistoric times to modern days, Human Evolution focuses on an aspect of evolution that has typically been overshadowed by the archaeological record: the biological, neurological, and genetic changes that occurred with each "transition" in the evolutionary narrative. Dunbar's interdisciplinary approach - inspired by his background as both an anthropologist and accomplished psychologist - brings the reader into all aspects of the evolutionary process, which he describes as the "jigsaw puzzle" of evolution that he and the reader will help solve. In doing so, the book carefully maps out each stage of the evolutionary process, from anatomical changes such as bipedalism and increase in brain size, to cognitive and behavioral changes, such as the ability to cook, laugh, and use language to form communities through religion and story-telling. Most importantly and interestingly, Dunbar hypothesizes the order in which these evolutionary changes occurred-conclusions that are reached with the "time budget model" theory that Dunbar himself coined. As definitive as the "stones and bones" are for the hard dates of archaeological evidence, this book explores far more complex psychological questions that require a degree of intellectual speculation: What does it really mean to be human (as opposed to being an ape), and how did we come to be that way?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190616786
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/28/2016
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	549,988
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Robin Dunbar is an evolutionary psychologist and former director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology in the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University. His acclaimed books include How Many Friends Does One Person Need? and Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, described by Malcolm Gladwell as "a marvellous work of popular science."

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 What We Have to Explain
CHAPTER 2 The Bases of Primate Sociality
CHAPTER 3 The Essential Framework
CHAPTER 4 The First Transition: THE AUSTRALOPITHECINES
CHAPTER 5 The Second Transition: EARLY HOMO
CHAPTER 6 The Third Transition: ARCHAIC HUMANS
CHAPTER 7 The Fourth Transition: MODERN HUMANS
CHAPTER 8 How Kinship, Language and Culture Came to Be
CHAPTER 9 The Fifth Transition: THE NEOLITHIC AND BEYOND

Editorial Reviews

★ 05/23/2016
Dunbar (How Many Friends Does One Person Need?), a professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford, ponders what it is “to be human (as opposed to being an ape)” and asks, “How did we come to be that way?” He suggests the answer began with a cooling climate 1.8 million to 2.5 million years ago, which led to fewer lush forests and more harsh grasslands. Because human ancestors were bipedal, they left trees for dangerous open spaces more easily than other primates. This left them vulnerable to predators, so social bonding became crucial for mutual protection. But as groups grew in size to improve safety, bonding became more complex and difficult to sustain. To adapt, did hominids begin evolving to replace grooming—most primates’ time-consuming bonding mechanism—with laughter, singing, and speech, simply because such bonding methods took less time? Did such increasingly sophisticated communication methods lead to bigger brains, spawning more sophisticated technology (cooking and hunting tools) and thus even more sophisticated communication methods (culture and religion), and in turn even larger brains? In light of such questions, Dunbar devised mathematical “time-budget” models to support his “social brain hypothesis.” Dunbar’s idea has gained in popularity among scholars, and his narrative is so mesmerizing it may attract many general readers, too. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"The author's focus on social life is very refreshing and his highly original approach leads to various surprising but potentially testable ideas. One day, the separate approaches to subsistence and social life of our ancestors will have to be integrated, as we know they are in real life. Meanwhile, Dunbar's proposals form a great start to this dialogue." — Quarterly Review of Biology

"Dunbar's idea has gained in popularity among many scholars, and his narrative is so mesmerizing it may attract many general readers, too." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Human Evolution offers a compelling story, one that resonates with human nature even now." —Maclean's

"A compelling journey into human nature, from the roots of our sociality to the rise of storytelling." —Nature

From the Publisher

2016-06-08
A history of the "insatiable curiosity about who we are and where we have come from."Histories of human evolution rely on stones and bones because that's all that remains of our ancestors. That works well for anatomy but not so well for culture or consciousness. British evolutionary psychologist Dunbar (How Many Friends Does One Person Need?: Dunbar's Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks, 2010, etc.), former director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford, attacks the big questions: "What is it to be human (as opposed to being an ape)? And how did we come to be that way?" He offers a series of lucid but definitely not dumbed-down answers. During the 1990s, scientists developed two approaches that did not require artifacts. The first is the social brain hypothesis, which argues that intelligence evolved not to solve ecological problems but to thrive in social groups. Studies show that primate brain size is proportional to the complexity of the species' social interactions. Dunbar concludes that humans best maintain stable social relations with 150 others, a figure known as Dunbar's number (modestly not named by the author). The second is the time budget model. Primates fill a 24-hour day with travel, feeding, socialization, and rest. Changing one affects the others. Thus, the huge Homo sapiens brain requires a great increase in energy intake. How did we accomplish this without squeezing other activities? Some answers: eating meat, inventing cooking, saving energy by shrinking our gut, and traveling faster with our longer legs. Dunbar delivers impressive accounts of brain scans, genetics, sociological research, and animal and human psychological studies but no tales of intrepid anthropologists suffering in the desert. Readers who pay attention and do not skim the many graphs, tables, and statistics will discover a rich trove of discoveries on how primitive primates became modern humans.

Kirkus Reviews