Thinking big : how the evolution of social life shaped the human mind / Clive Gamble, John Gowlett and Robin Dunbar.

By:

Gamble, Clive [author.]

Contributor(s):

Material type: Text

TextPublisher: London : Thames and Hudson, 2018Edition: Paperback editionDescription: 238 P Illustratiionen. ; 20 cmISBN:

9780500293829

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

155.7 GAM

Contents:

Psychology meets archaeology -- What it means to be social -- Ancient social lives -- Ancestors with small brains -- Building the human niche : three crucial skills -- Ancestors with large brains -- Living in big societies.

Abstract: When and how did the brains of our hominin ancestors become human minds? When and why did our capacity for language or art, music and dance evolve? It is the contention of this pathbreaking and provocative book that it was the need for early humans to live in ever-larger social groups, and to maintain social relations over ever-greater distances the ability to think big that drove the enlargement of the human brain and the development of the human mind. This social brain hypothesis, put forward by evolutionary psychologists such as Robin Dunbar, one of the authors of this book, can be tested against archaeological and fossil evidence, as archaeologists Clive Gamble and John Gowlett show in the second part of Thinking Big. Along the way, the three authors touch on subjects as diverse and diverting as the switch from finger-tip grooming to vocal grooming or the crucial importance of making fire for the lengthening of the social day. Ultimately, the social worlds we inhabit today can be traced back to our Stone Age ancestors.

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Books	H.T. Parekh Library	SIAS Collection	155.7 GAM (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		K2847

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Previous	155.633 CHO Feminism and psychoanalytic theory /	155.633 NEF Women and their emotions /	155.671 FOW Frailty, suffering, and vice: flourishing in the face of human limitations /	155.7 GAM Thinking big :	155.7 KEL Mirage of a space between nature and nurture /	155.7 STE Ape that understood the universe: how the mind and culture evolve /	155.8 PSY Psychology of cultural experience /	Next

GBP 9.99
S02/41
Includes bibliographical references and index.

When and how did the brains of our hominin ancestors become human minds? When and why did our capacity for language or art, music and dance evolve? It is the contention of this pathbreaking and provocative book that it was the need for early humans to live in ever-larger social groups, and to maintain social relations over ever-greater distances the ability to think big that drove the enlargement of the human brain and the development of the human mind. This social brain hypothesis, put forward by evolutionary psychologists such as Robin Dunbar, one of the authors of this book, can be tested against archaeological and fossil evidence, as archaeologists Clive Gamble and John Gowlett show in the second part of Thinking Big. Along the way, the three authors touch on subjects as diverse and diverting as the switch from finger-tip grooming to vocal grooming or the crucial importance of making fire for the lengthening of the social day. Ultimately, the social worlds we inhabit today can be traced back to our Stone Age ancestors.

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