Apes and Human Evolution / Russell H. Tuttle.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tuttle, Russell H., author.

Contributor:

Credo Reference (Firm), distributor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Primates--Evolution.

Primates.

Fossil hominids.

Human evolution.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1072 p.)

Edition:

[Enhanced Credo edition]

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this masterwork, Russell H. Tuttle synthesizes a vast research literature in primate evolution and behavior to explain how apes and humans evolved in relation to one another, and why humans became a bipedal, tool-making, culture-inventing species distinct from other hominoids. Along the way, he refutes the theory that men are essentially killer apes--sophisticated but instinctively aggressive, destructive beings. Situating humans in a broad context, Tuttle musters evidence from morphology and recent fossil discoveries to reveal what early primates ate, where they slept, how they learned to walk upright, how brain and hand anatomy evolved simultaneously, and what else happened evolutionarily to cause humans to diverge from their closest relatives. Despite our genomic similarities with bonobos, chimpanzees, and gorillas, humans are unique among primates in occupying a symbolic niche of values and beliefs based on symbolically mediated cognitive processes. Although apes exhibit behaviors that strongly suggest they can think, salient elements of human culture--speech, mating proscriptions, kinship structures, and moral codes--are symbolic systems that are not manifest among apes. This encylopedic volume is both a milestone in primatological research and a critique of what is known and yet to be discovered about human and ape potential.

Contents:

Contents

Preface

1 Mongrel Models and Seductive Scenarios of Human Evolution

Part I. Terminology, Morphology, Genes, and Lots of Fossils

2. Apes in Space

3. Apes in Time

4 Taproot and Branches of Our Family Tree

Part II. Positional and Subsistence Behaviors

5 Apes in Motion

6 Several Ways to Achieve Erection

7 Hungry and Sleepy Apes

8 Hunting Apes and Mutualism

Part III. Hands, Tools, Brains, and Cognition

9. Handy Apes

10 Mental Apes

Part IV. Sociality and Communication

11 Social, Antisocial, and Sexual Apes

12 Communicative Apes

Part V. What makes us human?

13 Language, Culture, Ideology, Spirituality, and Morality

Notes

References

Illustration Credits

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 691-1015).

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9780674727854

0674727851

9781785396007

1785396005

OCLC:

940820311