Human Culture

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The Dawn of Human Culture

Author : Richard G. Klein
Publisher : Turner Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 0470250712
Total Pages : 331 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (72 download)

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Book Synopsis The Dawn of Human Culture by : Richard G. Klein

Download or read book The Dawn of Human Culture written by Richard G. Klein and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2007-08-15 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold new theory on what sparked the "big bang" of human culture The abrupt emergence of human culture over a stunningly short period continues to be one of the great enigmas of human evolution. This compelling book introduces a bold new theory on this unsolved mystery. Author Richard Klein reexamines the archaeological evidence and brings in new discoveries in the study of the human brain. These studies detail the changes that enabled humans to think and behave in far more sophisticated ways than before, resulting in the incredibly rapid evolution of new skills. Richard Klein has been described as "the premier anthropologist in the country today" by Evolutionary Anthropology. Here, he and coauthor Blake Edgar shed new light on the full story of a truly fascinating period of evolution. Richard G. Klein, PhD (Palo Alto, CA), is a Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University. He is the author of the definitive academic book on the subject of the origins of human culture, The Human Career. Blake Edgar (San Francisco, CA) is the coauthor of the very successful From Lucy to Language, with Dr. Donald Johanson. He has written extensively for Discover, GEO, and numerous other magazines.

Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind

Author : Mark Pagel
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393065871
Total Pages : 431 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind by : Mark Pagel

Download or read book Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind written by Mark Pagel and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-02-07 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating, far-reaching study of how our species' innate capacity for culture altered the course of our social and evolutionary history. A unique trait of the human species is that our personalities, lifestyles, and worldviews are shaped by an accident of birth—namely, the culture into which we are born. It is our cultures and not our genes that determine which foods we eat, which languages we speak, which people we love and marry, and which people we kill in war. But how did our species develop a mind that is hardwired for culture—and why? Evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel tracks this intriguing question through the last 80,000 years of human evolution, revealing how an innate propensity to contribute and conform to the culture of our birth not only enabled human survival and progress in the past but also continues to influence our behavior today. Shedding light on our species’ defining attributes—from art, morality, and altruism to self-interest, deception, and prejudice—Wired for Culture offers surprising new insights into what it means to be human.

Cultural Evolution

Author : Alex Mesoudi
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226520455
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (265 download)

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Book Synopsis Cultural Evolution by : Alex Mesoudi

Download or read book Cultural Evolution written by Alex Mesoudi and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-07-30 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Darwin changed the course of scientific thinking by showing how evolution accounts for the stunning diversity and biological complexity of life on earth. Recently, there has also been increased interest in the social sciences in how Darwinian theory can explain human culture. Covering a wide range of topics, including fads, public policy, the spread of religion, and herd behavior in markets, Alex Mesoudi shows that human culture is itself an evolutionary process that exhibits the key Darwinian mechanisms of variation, competition, and inheritance. This cross-disciplinary volume focuses on the ways cultural phenomena can be studied scientifically—from theoretical modeling to lab experiments, archaeological fieldwork to ethnographic studies—and shows how apparently disparate methods can complement one another to the mutual benefit of the various social science disciplines. Along the way, the book reveals how new insights arise from looking at culture from an evolutionary angle. Cultural Evolution provides a thought-provoking argument that Darwinian evolutionary theory can both unify different branches of inquiry and enhance understanding of human behavior.

A Brief History of Human Culture in the 20th Century

Author : Qi Xin
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 9811399735
Total Pages : 275 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (113 download)

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Book Synopsis A Brief History of Human Culture in the 20th Century by : Qi Xin

Download or read book A Brief History of Human Culture in the 20th Century written by Qi Xin and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-08-27 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the cultural concepts that guided the development of the “age of mankind”— the changes that took place in historical, philosophical, scientific, religious, literary, and artistic thought in the 20th century. It discusses a broad range of major topics, including the spread of commercial capitalism; socialist revolutions; the two world wars; anti-colonialist national liberation movements; scientific progress; the clashes and fusion of Eastern and Western cultures; globalization; women’s rights movements; mass media and entertainment; the age of information and the digital society. The combination of cultural phenomena and theoretical descriptions ensures a unity of culture, history and logic. Lastly, the book explores the enormous changes in lifestyles and the virtualized future, revealing cultural characteristics and discussing 21st -century trends in the context of information technology, globalization and the digital era.

Cultural Connections

Author : Morris J. Vogel
Publisher : Temple University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780877228400
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (284 download)

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Book Synopsis Cultural Connections by : Morris J. Vogel

Download or read book Cultural Connections written by Morris J. Vogel and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illustrates the history, civilization, and social conditions of the United States via artifacts, paintings, and other objects from the collections of cultural institutions in Philadelphia and environs.

Evolution, Culture, and the Human Mind

Author : Mark Schaller
Publisher : Psychology Press
ISBN 13 : 1136950494
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (369 download)

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Book Synopsis Evolution, Culture, and the Human Mind by : Mark Schaller

Download or read book Evolution, Culture, and the Human Mind written by Mark Schaller and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2011-03-17 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enormous amount of scientific research compels two fundamental conclusions about the human mind: The mind is the product of evolution; and the mind is shaped by culture. These two perspectives on the human mind are not incompatible, but, until recently, their compatibility has resisted rigorous scholarly inquiry. Evolutionary psychology documents many ways in which genetic adaptations govern the operations of the human mind. But evolutionary inquiries only occasionally grapple seriously with questions about human culture and cross-cultural differences. By contrast, cultural psychology documents many ways in which thought and behavior are shaped by different cultural experiences. But cultural inquires rarely consider evolutionary processes. Even after decades of intensive research, these two perspectives on human psychology have remained largely divorced from each other. But that is now changing - and that is what this book is about. Evolution, Culture, and the Human Mind is the first scholarly book to integrate evolutionary and cultural perspectives on human psychology. The contributors include world-renowned evolutionary, cultural, social, and cognitive psychologists. These chapters reveal many novel insights linking human evolution to both human cognition and human culture – including the evolutionary origins of cross-cultural differences. The result is a stimulating introduction to an emerging integrative perspective on human nature.

Transforming Human Culture

Author : Jay Earley
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 9780791433737
Total Pages : 382 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (337 download)

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Book Synopsis Transforming Human Culture by : Jay Earley

Download or read book Transforming Human Culture written by Jay Earley and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The next step in social evolution, Earley argues, is to take conscious charge of our future by integrating the ground qualities with the emergent qualities so that they can continue to evolve, but in a healthy way.

The Emergence of Culture

Author : Philip Chase
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 0387306749
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (873 download)

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Book Synopsis The Emergence of Culture by : Philip Chase

Download or read book The Emergence of Culture written by Philip Chase and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-09-27 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes the emergent nature of human culture, based on the human ability to create and pass on social codes through instruction and example. It proposes hypotheses to explain how a phenomenon that is potentially maladaptive for individuals could have evolved, and to explain why culture plays such a pervasive role in human life. It then reviews the primatological, fossil, and archaeological data to test these hypotheses.

Culture Matters

Author : Lawrence E. Harrison
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 9780465031764
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (317 download)

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Book Synopsis Culture Matters by : Lawrence E. Harrison

Download or read book Culture Matters written by Lawrence E. Harrison and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2000 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prominent scholars and journalists ponder the question of why, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the world is more divided than ever between the rich and the poor, between those living in freedom and those under oppression.

Evolution and Human Culture

Author : Gregory F. Tague
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004319484
Total Pages : 174 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis Evolution and Human Culture by : Gregory F. Tague

Download or read book Evolution and Human Culture written by Gregory F. Tague and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-04-26 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evolution and Human Culture surveys disciplines of evolutionary studies to posit that hominin evolved moral sentiments have been integral to the development of artistic culture.

The Secret of Our Success

Author : Joseph Henrich
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691178437
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Secret of Our Success by : Joseph Henrich

Download or read book The Secret of Our Success written by Joseph Henrich and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How our collective intelligence has helped us to evolve and prosper Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals? This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains—on the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations. Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, mobile hunter-gatherers, neuroscientific findings, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology. Our early capacities for learning from others produced many cultural innovations, such as fire, cooking, water containers, plant knowledge, and projectile weapons, which in turn drove the expansion of our brains and altered our physiology, anatomy, and psychology in crucial ways. Later on, some collective brains generated and recombined powerful concepts, such as the lever, wheel, screw, and writing, while also creating the institutions that continue to alter our motivations and perceptions. Henrich shows how our genetics and biology are inextricably interwoven with cultural evolution, and how culture-gene interactions launched our species on an extraordinary evolutionary trajectory. Tracking clues from our ancient past to the present, The Secret of Our Success explores how the evolution of both our cultural and social natures produce a collective intelligence that explains both our species' immense success and the origins of human uniqueness.

Human Evolution Beyond Biology and Culture

Author : Jeroen C. J. M. van den Bergh
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108470971
Total Pages : 575 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis Human Evolution Beyond Biology and Culture by : Jeroen C. J. M. van den Bergh

Download or read book Human Evolution Beyond Biology and Culture written by Jeroen C. J. M. van den Bergh and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete account of evolutionary thought in the social, environmental and policy sciences, creating bridges with biology.

Uncharted

Author : Erez Aiden
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101632119
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis Uncharted by : Erez Aiden

Download or read book Uncharted written by Erez Aiden and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-12-26 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One of the most exciting developments from the world of ideas in decades, presented with panache by two frighteningly brilliant, endearingly unpretentious, and endlessly creative young scientists.” – Steven Pinker, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature Our society has gone from writing snippets of information by hand to generating a vast flood of 1s and 0s that record almost every aspect of our lives: who we know, what we do, where we go, what we buy, and who we love. This year, the world will generate 5 zettabytes of data. (That’s a five with twenty-one zeros after it.) Big data is revolutionizing the sciences, transforming the humanities, and renegotiating the boundary between industry and the ivory tower. What is emerging is a new way of understanding our world, our past, and possibly, our future. In Uncharted, Erez Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel tell the story of how they tapped into this sea of information to create a new kind of telescope: a tool that, instead of uncovering the motions of distant stars, charts trends in human history across the centuries. By teaming up with Google, they were able to analyze the text of millions of books. The result was a new field of research and a scientific tool, the Google Ngram Viewer, so groundbreaking that its public release made the front page of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe, and so addictive that Mother Jones called it “the greatest timewaster in the history of the internet.” Using this scope, Aiden and Michel—and millions of users worldwide—are beginning to see answers to a dizzying array of once intractable questions. How quickly does technology spread? Do we talk less about God today? When did people start “having sex” instead of “making love”? At what age do the most famous people become famous? How fast does grammar change? Which writers had their works most effectively censored by the Nazis? When did the spelling “donut” start replacing the venerable “doughnut”? Can we predict the future of human history? Who is better known—Bill Clinton or the rutabaga? All over the world, new scopes are popping up, using big data to quantify the human experience at the grandest scales possible. Yet dangers lurk in this ocean of 1s and 0s—threats to privacy and the specter of ubiquitous government surveillance. Aiden and Michel take readers on a voyage through these uncharted waters.

Not By Genes Alone

Author : Peter J. Richerson
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226712133
Total Pages : 343 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis Not By Genes Alone by : Peter J. Richerson

Download or read book Not By Genes Alone written by Peter J. Richerson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-06-20 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans are a striking anomaly in the natural world. While we are similar to other mammals in many ways, our behavior sets us apart. Our unparalleled ability to adapt has allowed us to occupy virtually every habitat on earth using an incredible variety of tools and subsistence techniques. Our societies are larger, more complex, and more cooperative than any other mammal's. In this stunning exploration of human adaptation, Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd argue that only a Darwinian theory of cultural evolution can explain these unique characteristics. Not by Genes Alone offers a radical interpretation of human evolution, arguing that our ecological dominance and our singular social systems stem from a psychology uniquely adapted to create complex culture. Richerson and Boyd illustrate here that culture is neither superorganic nor the handmaiden of the genes. Rather, it is essential to human adaptation, as much a part of human biology as bipedal locomotion. Drawing on work in the fields of anthropology, political science, sociology, and economics—and building their case with such fascinating examples as kayaks, corporations, clever knots, and yams that require twelve men to carry them—Richerson and Boyd convincingly demonstrate that culture and biology are inextricably linked, and they show us how to think about their interaction in a way that yields a richer understanding of human nature. In abandoning the nature-versus-nurture debate as fundamentally misconceived, Not by Genes Alone is a truly original and groundbreaking theory of the role of culture in evolution and a book to be reckoned with for generations to come. “I continue to be surprised by the number of educated people (many of them biologists) who think that offering explanations for human behavior in terms of culture somehow disproves the suggestion that human behavior can be explained in Darwinian evolutionary terms. Fortunately, we now have a book to which they may be directed for enlightenment . . . . It is a book full of good sense and the kinds of intellectual rigor and clarity of writing that we have come to expect from the Boyd/Richerson stable.”—Robin Dunbar, Nature “Not by Genes Alone is a valuable and very readable synthesis of a still embryonic but very important subject straddling the sciences and humanities.”—E. O. Wilson, Harvard University

Coevolution

Author : William H. Durham
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780804721561
Total Pages : 658 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (215 download)

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Book Synopsis Coevolution by : William H. Durham

Download or read book Coevolution written by William H. Durham and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Darwin's "On the Origins of Species" had two principal goals: to show that species had not been separately created and to show that natural selection had been the main force behind their proliferation and descent from common ancestors. In "Coevolution," the author proposes a powerful new theory of cultural evolution--that is, of the descent with modification of the shared conceptual systems we call "cultures"--that is parallel in many ways to Darwin's theory of organic evolution. The author suggests that a process of cultural selection, or preservation by preference, driven chiefly by choice or imposition depending on the circumstances, has been the main but not exclusive force of cultural change. He shows that this process gives rise to five major patterns or "modes" in which cultural change is at odds with genetic change. Each of the five modes is discussed in some detail and its existence confirmed through one or more case studies chosen for their heuristic value, the robustness of their data, and their broader implications. But "Coevolution" predicts not simply the existence of the five modes of gene-culture relations; it also predicts their relative importance in the ongoing dynamics of cultural change in particular cases. The case studies themselves are lucid and innovative reexaminations of an array of oft-pondered anthropological topics--plural marriage, sickle-cell anemia, basic color terms, adult lactose absorption, incest taboos, headhunting, and cannibalism. In a general case, the author's goal is to demonstrate that an evolutionary analysis of both genes and culture has much to contribute to our understanding of human diversity, particularly behavioral diversity, and thus to the resolution of age-old questions about nature and nurture, genes and culture.

That Complex Whole

Author : Lee Cronk
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 042996546X
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

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Book Synopsis That Complex Whole by : Lee Cronk

Download or read book That Complex Whole written by Lee Cronk and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-20 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our understanding of the evolution of human behavior has grown enormously over the past few decades, and an increasing number of behavioral and social scientists are making use of evolutionary theory in their work to shed light on issues ranging from marriage and parenting to the study of mental illness. The success of this research program is thre

Beyond Human Nature

Author : Jesse J. Prinz
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 1846145724
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (461 download)

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Book Synopsis Beyond Human Nature by : Jesse J. Prinz

Download or read book Beyond Human Nature written by Jesse J. Prinz and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012-01-26 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative, revelatory tour de force, Jesse Prinz reveals how the cultures we live in - not biology - determine how we think and feel. He examines all aspects of our behaviour, looking at everything from our intellects and emotions, to love and sex, morality and even madness. This book seeks to go beyond traditional debates of nature and nurture. He is not interested in finding universal laws but, rather, in understanding, explaining and celebrating our differences. Why do people raised in Western countries tend to see the trees before the forest, while people from East Asia see the forest before the trees? Why, in South East Asia, is there a common form of mental illness, unheard of in the West, in which people go into a trancelike state after being startled? Compared to Northerners, why are people in the American South more than twice as likely to kill someone over an argument? And, above all, just how malleable are we? Prinz shows that the vast diversity of our behaviour is not engrained. He picks up where biological explanations leave off. He tells us the human story.