The Origin of Humankind
Page 16
Animals and plants are fundamental to the survival of hunter-gatherers, as are the natural elements, which nurture the environment. Life, as a complex interplay of all these elements, is seen as an interplay of intentional actions, just like the social nexus. It is not surprising, therefore, that animals and physical forces play an important role in the mythology of foraging peoples the world over. The same must have applied in the past.
On my visit to many of the decorated caves in France a decade ago, this thought kept occurring to me. The images I saw before me, some of which were simply sketched, some crafted in detail, were always potent in their impact on my mind but elusive in their meaning. The half human/half animal figures, particularly, challenged my imagination, and left it defeated. I was certain that I was in the presence of elements of an ancient people’s origin myth, but I had no way of seeing it. We know from recent history that the eland has myriad spiritual powers for the San people of southern Africa. But we can only speculate about the role that the horse and the bison played in the spiritual lives of Ice Age Europeans. We know they were powerful, but we have no idea in what way.
Standing before the bison figures in Le Tuc d’Audou bert, I sensed the connectedness of human minds across the millennia: the mind of the sculptors of those figures, and my own mind—the mind of the observer. And I felt the frustration of being distant from the artists’ world, not because we were separated in time but because we were separated by our different cultures. This is one of the paradoxes of Homo sapiens: we experience the unity and diversity of a mind shaped by eons of life as hunter-gatherers. We experience its unity in the common possession of an awareness of self and a sense of awe at the miracle of life. And we experience its diversity in the different cultures—expressed in language, customs, and religions—that we create and that create us. We should rejoice at so wondrous a product of evolution.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READINGS
PREFACE
Leakey, Richard E., and Roger Lewin, Origins (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977).
--------, Origins Reconsidered (New York: Doubleday, 1992).
Tattersall, Ian, The Human Odyssey (New York: Prentice Hall, 1993).
CHAPTER I. THE FIRST HUMANS
Broom, Robert, The Coming of Man: Was It Accident or Design? (New York: Witherby, 1933).
Coppens, Yves, “East Side Story: The Origin of Humankind,” Scientific American, May 1994, pp. 88-95.
Darwin, Charles, The Descent of Man (London: John Murray, 1871).
Lewin, Roger, Bones of Contention (New York: Touchstone, 1988).
Lovejoy, C. Owen, “The Origin of Man,” Science 211 (1981): 341-350. [See responses, 217 (1982): 295-306.]
--------, “The Evolution of Human Walking,” Scientific American, November 1988, pp. 118-125.
Pilbeam, David, “Hominoid Evolution and Hominoid Origins,” American Anthropologist, 88 (1986): 295-312.
Rodman, Peter S., and Henry M. McHenry, “Bioenergetics of Hominid Bipedalism,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 52 (1980): 103-106.
Sarich, Vincent M., “A Personal Perspective on Hominoid Macro-molecular Systematics,” in Russel L. Ciochon and Robert S. Cor-ruccini eds., New Interpretations of Ape and Human Ancestry (New York: Plenum Press, 1983), pp. 135-150.
Wallace, Alfred Russel, Darwinism (London: Macmillan, 1889).
CHAPTER 2. A CROWDED FAMILY
Foley, Robert A., Another Unique Species (Harlow, Essex: Longman Scientific and Technical, 1987).
--------,“How Many Species of Hominid Should There Be?” Journal of Human Evolution 20 (1991): 413-429.
Johanson, Donald C, and Maitland A. Edey, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981).
Johanson, Donald C, and Tim D. White, “A Systematic Assessment of Early African Hominids,” Science 202 (1979): 321-330.
Leakey, Richard E., The Making of Mankind (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1981).
Schick, Kathy D., and Nicholas Toth, Making Stones Speak (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).
Susman, Randall L., and Jack Stern, “The Locomotor Behavior of Australopithecus afarensis,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 60 (1983): 279-317.
Susman, Randall L., et al., “Arboreality and Bipedality in the Hadar Hominids,” Folia Primatologica 43 (1984): 113-156.
Toth, Nicholas, “Archaeological Evidence for Preferential Right-Handedness in the Lower Pleistocene, and Its Possible Implications,” Journal of Human Evolution 14 (1985): 607-614.
--------, “The First Technology,” Scientific American, April 1987, pp. 112-121.
Wynn, Thomas, and William C. McGrew, “An Ape’s View of the Oldowan,” Man 24 (1989): 383-398.
CHAPTER 3. A DIFFERENT KIND OF HUMAN
Aiello, Leslie, “Patterns of Stature and Weight in Human Evolution,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 81 (1990): 186-187.
Bogin, Barry, “The Evolution of Human Childhood,” Bioscience 40 (1990): 16-25.
Foley, Robert A., and Phyllis E. Lee, “Finite Social Space, Evolutionary Pathways, and Reconstructing Hominid Behavior,” Science 243 (1989): 901-906.
Martin, Robert D., “Human Brain Evolution in an Ecological Context,” The Fifty-second James Arthur Lecture on the Human Brain (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1983).
Spoor, Fred, et al., “Implications of Early Hominid Labyrinthine Morphology for Evolution of Human Bipedal Locomotion,” Nature 369 (1994): 645-648.
Stanley, Steven M., “An Ecological Theory for the Origin of Homo,” Paleobiology 18 (1992): 237-257.
Walker, Alan, and Richard E. Leakey, The Nariokotome Homo Erectus Skeleton (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).
Wood, Bernard, “Origin and Evolution of the Genus Homo,” Nature 355 (1992): 783-790.
CHAPTER 4. MAN THE NOBLE HUNTER?
Ardrey, Robert, The Hunting Hypothesis (New York: Atheneum, 1976).
Binford, Lewis, Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myth (San Diego: Academic Press, 1981).
--------, “Human Ancestors: Changing Views of their Behavior,” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 4 (1985): 292-327.
Bunn, Henry, and Ellen Kroll, “Systematic Butchery by Plio/Pleis-tocene Hominids at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania,” Current Anthropology 27 (1986): 431-452.
Bunn, Henry, et al., “FxJj50: An Early Pleistocene Site in Northern Kenya,” World Archaeology 12 (1980): 109-136.
Isaac, Glynn, “The Sharing Hypothesis,” Scientific American, April 1978, pp. 90-106.
--------, “Aspects of Human Evolution,” in Evolution from Molecules to Man, D. S. Bendall, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
Lee, Richard B., and Irven DeVore, eds., Man the Hunter (Chicago: Aldine, 1968).
Potts, Richard, Early Hominid Activities at Olduvai (New York: Aldine, 1988).
Robinson, John T., “Adaptive Radiation in the Australopithecines and the Origin of Man,” in F. C. Howell and F. Bourliere, eds., African Ecology and Human Evolution (Chicago: Aldine, 1963), pp. 385-416.
Sept, Jeanne M, “A New Perspective on Hominid Archeological Sites from the Mapping of Chimpanzee Nests,” Current Anthropology 33 (1992): 187-208.
Shipman, Pat, “Scavenging or Hunting in Early Hominids?” American Anthropologist 88 (1986): 27-43.
Zihlman, Adrienne, “Women as Shapers of the Human Adaptation,” in Frances Dahlberg, ed., Woman the Gatherer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981).
CHAPTER 5. THE ORIGIN OF MODERN HUMANS
Klein, Richard G., “The Archeology of Modern Humans,” Evolutionary Anthropology 1 (1992): 5-14.
Lewin, Roger, The Origin of Modern Humans (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1993).
Mellars, Paul, “Major Issues in the Emergence of Modern Humans,” Current Anthropology 30 (1989): 349-385.
Mellars, Paul, and Christopher Stringer, eds., The Human Revolution: Behavioural and Biological Perspectives on the Origins of Modern Humans (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989).
Rouha
ni, Shahin, “Molecular Genetics and the Pattern of Human Evolution,” in Mellars and Stringer, eds., The Human Revolution.
Stringer, Christopher, “The Emergence of Modern Humans,” Scientific American, December 1990, pp. 98-104.
Stringer, Christopher, and Clive Gamble, In Search of the Neanderthals (London: Thames & Hudson, 1993).
Thome, Alan G., and Milford H. Wolpoff, “The Multiregional Evolution of Humans,” Scientific American, April 1992, pp. 76-83.
Trinkaus, Erik, and Pat Shipman, The Neanderthals (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).
White, Randall, “Rethinking the Middle/Upper Paleolithic Transition,” Current Anthropology 23 (1982): 169-189.
Wilson, Allan C, and Rebecca L. Cann, “The Recent African Genesis of Humans,” Scientific American, April 1992, pp. 68-73.
CHAPTER 6. THE LANGUAGE OF ART
Bahn, Paul, and Jean Vertut, Images of the Ice Age (New York: Facts on File, 1988).
Conkey, Margaret W., “New Approaches in the Search for Meaning? A Review of Research in ‘Paleolithic Art,’” Journal of Field Archaeology 14 (1987): 413-430.
Davidson, Iain, and William Noble, “The Archeology of Depiction and Language,” Current Anthropology 30 (1989): 125-156.
Halverson, John, “Art for Art’s Sake in the Paleolithic,” Current Anthropology 28 (1987): 63-89.
Lewin, Roger, “Paleolithic Paint Job,” Discover, July 1993, pp. 64-70.
Lewis-Williams, J. David, and Thomas A. Dowson, “The Signs of All Times,” Current Anthropology 29 (1988): 202-245.
Lindly, John M., and Geoffrey A. Clark, “Symbolism and Modern Human Origins,” Current Anthropology 31 (1991): 233-262.
Lorblanchet, Michel, “Spitting Images,” Archeology, November/ December 1991, pp. 27-31.
Scarre, Chris, “Painting by Resonance,” Nature 338 (1989): 382.
White, Randall, “Visual Thinking in the Ice Age,” Scientific American, July 1989, pp. 92-99.
CHAPTER 7. THE ART OF LANGUAGE
Bickerton, Derek, Language and Species (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).
Chomsky, Noam, Language and Problems of Knowledge (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988).
Davidson, Iain, and William Noble, “The Archeology of Depiction and Language,” Current Anthropology 30 (1989): 125-156.
Deacon, Terrence, “The Neural Circuitry Underlying Primate Calls and Human Language,” Human Evolution 4 (1989): 367-401.
Gibson, Kathleen, and Tim Ingold, eds., Tools, Language, and Intelligence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Holloway, Ralph, “Human Paleontological Evidence Relevant to Language Behavior,” Human Neurobiology 2 (1983): 105-114.
Isaac, Glynn, “Stages of Cultural Elaboration in the Pleistocene,” in Steven R. Hamad, Horst D. Steklis, and Jane Lancaster, eds., Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1976).
Jerison, Harry, “Brain Size and the Evolution of Mind,” The Fifty-ninth James Arthur Lecture on the Human Brain (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1991).
Laitman, Jeffrey T., “The Anatomy of Human Speech,” Natural History, August 1984, pp. 20-27.
Pinker, Steven, The Language Instinct (New York: William Morrow, 1994).
Pinker, Steven, and Paul Bloom, “Natural Language and Natural Selection,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13 (1990): 707-784.
White, Randall, “Thoughts on Social Relationships and Language in Hominid Evolution,” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 2 (1985): 95-115.
Wills, Christopher, The Runaway Brain (New York: Basic Books, 1993).
Wynn, Thomas, and William C. McGrew, “An Ape’s View of the Oldowan,” Man 24 (1989): 383-398.
CHAPTER 8. THE ORIGIN OF MIND
Byrne, Richard, and Andrew Whiten, Machiavellian Intelligence: Social Expertise and the Evolution of Intellect in Monkeys, Apes, and Humans (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988).
Cheney, Dorothy L., and Robert M. Seyfarth, How Monkeys See the World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).
Dennett, Daniel, Consciousness Explained (Boston: Little, Brown, 1991).
Gallup, Gordon, “Self-awareness and the Emergence of Mind in Primates,” American Journal of Primatology 2 (1982): 237-248.
Gibson, Kathleen, and Tim Ingold, eds., Tools, Language, and Intelligence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Griffin, Donald, Animal Minds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
Humphrey, Nicholas K., The Inner Eye (London: Faber & Faber, 1986).
--------, A History of the Mind (New York: HarperCollins, 1993). Jerison, Harry, “Brain Size and the Evolution of Mind,” The Fifty-ninth James Arthur Lecture on the Human Brain (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1991).
McGinn, Colin, “Can We Solve the Mind-Body Problem?” Mind 98 (1989): 349-366.
Savage-Rumbaugh, Sue, and Roger Lewin, Kanzi: At the Brink of Human Mind (New York: John Wiley, 1994).
Table of Contents
COVER PAGE
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
PREFACE
THE ORIGIN OF HUMANKIND
CHAPTER 1 THE FIRST HUMANS
CHAPTER 2 A CROWDED FAMILY
CHAPTER 3 A DIFFERENT KIND OF HUMAN
CHAPTER 4 MAN THE NOBLE HUNTER?
CHAPTER 5 THE ORIGIN OF MODERN HUMANS
CHAPTER 6 THE LANGUAGE OF ART
CHAPTER 7 THE ART OF LANGUAGE
CHAPTER 8 THE ORIGIN OF MIND
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READINGS
PREFACE
CHAPTER I. THE FIRST HUMANS
CHAPTER 2. A CROWDED FAMILY
CHAPTER 3. A DIFFERENT KIND OF HUMAN
CHAPTER 4. MAN THE NOBLE HUNTER?
CHAPTER 5. THE ORIGIN OF MODERN HUMANS
CHAPTER 6. THE LANGUAGE OF ART
CHAPTER 7. THE ART OF LANGUAGE
CHAPTER 8. THE ORIGIN OF MIND