Evolution of Mind, Brain, and Culture / / ed. by Holly Pittman, Gary Hatfield.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Penn Press eBook Package Complete Collection
• MitwirkendeR: Boyd, Robert,; Carruthers, Peter,; Chaminade, Thierry,; Chase, Philip G.,; Cheney, Dorothy L.,; Donald, Merlin,; Gärdenfors, Peter,; Hatfield, Gary,; Hey, Jody,; Mithen, Steven,; Nowell, April,; Richerson, Peter J.,; Schurr, Theodore G.,; Seyfarth, Robert M.,; Sterelny, Kim,; Warneken, Felix,
• HerausgeberIn: Hatfield, Gary,; Pittman, Holly,
• Place / Publishing House: Philadelphia : : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2013]; ©2013
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (496 p.) :; 27 illus.

Descartes boldly claimed: "I think, therefore I am." But one might well ask: Why do we think? How? When and why did our human ancestors develop language and culture? In other words, what makes the human mind human?Evolution of Mind, Brain, and Culture offers a comprehensive and scientific investigation of these perennial questions. Fourteen essays bring together the work of archaeologists, cultural and physical anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers, geneticists, a neuroscientist, and an environmental scientist to explore the evolution of the human mind, the brain, and the human capacity for culture. The volume represents and critically engages major theoretical approaches, including Donald's stage theory, Mithen's cathedral model, Tomasello's joint intentionality, and Boyd and Richerson's modeling of the evolution of culture in relation to climate change.No recent publication combines this breadth of evidential and theoretical perspective. The essays range in topic from the macroscopic (the evolution of social cooperation) to the microscopic (examining genetic data to infer evolutions in brain structure and function), and from the ancient (paleoanthropological reconstructions of hominin cognitive abilities) to the modern (including modern hominin's similarities to our primate cousins). Considered together, these essays constitute a fascinating, detailed look at what makes us human.PMIRC, volume 5

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Contributors -- Penn Museum International Research Conferences. Foreword -- Preface -- 1 Introduction: The Evolution of Mind, Brain, and Culture -- 2. When Did We Become Human? Evolutionary Perspectives on the Emergence of the Modern Human Mind, Brain, and Culture -- 3. What Genetics Can Tell Us about the Origins of the Modern Human Brain -- 4. The Primate Mind before Tools, Language, and Culture -- 5. Functions of Premotor Cortices: From Motor Control to Social Cognition -- 6. The Origins of Human Cooperation from a Developmental and Comparative Perspective -- 7. Mimesis Theory Re-Examined, Twenty Years after the Fact -- 8. The Role of Cooperation in the Evolution of Protolanguage and Language -- 9. The Cathedral Model for the Evolution of Human Cognition -- 10. Cognition, Behavioral Modernity, and the Archaeological Record of the Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic -- 11. Rethinking Paleoanthropology: A World Queerer Than We Supposed -- 12. Human Behavioral Ecology, Optimality, and Human Action -- 13. The Distinctively Human Mind: The Many Pillars of Cumulative Culture -- 14. Human Culture Is More than Memes and Transmission -- References Cited -- Index