Description
Book SynopsisKinship and Human Evolution: Making Culture, Becoming Human offers an exciting new explanation of human evolution. Based on insights from anthropology, it shows how humans became cultured beings capable of symbolic thought by developing kinship-based exchange relationships. Kinship was as an adaptive response to the harsh environment caused by the last major ice age. In the extreme ice age conditions, natural selection favored those groups that could forge and sustain such alliances, and the resulting relationships enabled them to share different food resources between groups. Kinship was a means of symbolically linking two or more groups, to the mutual reproductive advantage of both. From an evolutionary point of view, kinship freed humans from their dependence on their immediate environment, vastly expanding the niches they could occupy. If we take kinship to be the major factor in human evolution, networks and alliances must precede cultural units, becoming the defining element of l
Trade ReviewSteen Bergendorff argues persuasively that the key to human evolution lies in the origins of kinship. His argument captures the symbolic significance of the discovery of kin relations among early humans. It also explains the cultural diversity that kinship allows, in particular, in relation to trade. -- Alan Barnard, University of Edinburgh
Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1 The Record of Human Evolution Chapter 2 Connecting Niches by Kinship Chapter 3 Kinship and Exchange Chapter 4 From Kinship to Culture Chapter 5 Local Strategies—The Mekeo of Papua New Guinea Conclusion Bibliography
