Apes and Human Evolution - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Apes and Human Evolution write by Russell H. Tuttle. This book was released on 2014-02-17. Apes and Human Evolution available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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 influential theory that men are essentially killer apes—sophisticated but instinctively aggressive and destructive beings. Situating humans in a broad context, Tuttle musters convincing 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 in ape niches. This encyclopedic 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.
Chimpanzees and Human Evolution
Chimpanzees and Human Evolution - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Chimpanzees and Human Evolution write by Martin N. Muller. This book was released on 2017-11-27. Chimpanzees and Human Evolution available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Knowledge of chimpanzees in the wild has expanded dramatically in recent years. This comprehensive volume, edited by Martin Muller, Richard Wrangham, and David Pilbeam, brings together scientists who are leading a revolution to discover and explain what is unique about humans, by studying their closest living relatives. Their observations and conclusions have the potential to transform our understanding of human evolution. Chimpanzees offer scientists an unmatched view of what distinguishes humanity from its apelike ancestors. Based on evidence from the hominin fossil record and extensive morphological, developmental, and genetic data, Chimpanzees and Human Evolution makes the case that the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans was chimpanzee-like. It most likely lived in African rainforests around eight million years ago, eating fruit and walking on its knuckles. Readers will learn why chimpanzees are a better model for the last common ancestor than bonobos, gorillas, or orangutans. A thorough chapter-by-chapter analysis reveals which key traits we share with chimpanzees and which appear to be distinctive to Homo sapiens, and shows how understanding chimpanzees helps us account for the evolution of human uniqueness. Traits surveyed include social behaviors and structures, mating systems, diet, hunting practices, tool use, culture, cognition, and communication. Edited by three of primatology’s most renowned experts, with contributions from 32 scholars drawing on decades of field research, Chimpanzees and Human Evolution provides readers with detailed up-to-date information on what we can infer about our chimpanzee-like ancestors and points the way forward for the next generation of discoveries.
MORPHOLOGY OF THE PRIMATES AND HUMAN EVOLUTION
MORPHOLOGY OF THE PRIMATES AND HUMAN EVOLUTION - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook MORPHOLOGY OF THE PRIMATES AND HUMAN EVOLUTION write by R. P. SRIVASTAVA. This book was released on 2009-03-03. MORPHOLOGY OF THE PRIMATES AND HUMAN EVOLUTION available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This book presents a detailed account of the morphological features of the primates and, in the process, it provides a clear exposition of the story of human evolution. It discusses the theories of biological evolution, the origin of the primates, the morphology of the living primates, the social behaviour of the nonhuman primates, and the phylogenetic relationship between the large apes and man on the basis of immunological and molecular analyses. The text focuses on the Miocene hominoids and their role in the subsequent developments of the hominids. It discusses three theories—the Single Lineage Theory, the Double Lineage Theory, and the Triple Lineage Theory—developed through the study of the anatomical features of the australopithecine fossils found mainly in South and East Africa. The text also gives up-to-date information on the recent discoveries of several hominid species. The emergence of Homo erectus from one of the australopithecines, its cultural attainments, and the gradual transition to modern man are described in the text. The doubts about the phylogenetic lineage of the Neanderthals and the emergence of the early Homo sapiens in the context of human evolution form the basis of various theories regarding the evolution of modern man. These theories are thoroughly examined in the text. KEY FEATURES Discusses immunological and molecular approaches to primate phylogeny, and various dating techniques. Includes a number of figures, flow charts and phylogenetic trees to help readers understand the concepts clearly. Provides a Glossary of technical terms and contributions of some eminent persons to the subject. This book is designed for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Anthropology and Archaeology. Besides, students appearing in competitive examinations will also find the book beneficial.
Tales of the Ex-Apes
Tales of the Ex-Apes - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Tales of the Ex-Apes write by Jonathan Marks. This book was released on 2015-09-08. Tales of the Ex-Apes available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. What do we think about when we think about human evolution? With his characteristic wit and wisdom, anthropologist Jonathan Marks explores our scientific narrative of human origins—the study of evolution—and examines its cultural elements and theoretical foundations. In the process, he situates human evolution within a general anthropological framework and presents it as a special case of kinship and mythology. Tales of the Ex-Apes argues that human evolution has incorporated the emergence of social relations and cultural histories that are unprecedented in the apes and thus cannot be reduced to purely biological properties and processes. Marks shows that human evolution has involved the transformation from biological to biocultural evolution. Over tens of thousands of years, new social roles—notably spouse, father, in-laws, and grandparents—have co-evolved with new technologies and symbolic meanings to produce the human species, in the absence of significant biological evolution. We are biocultural creatures, Marks argues, fully comprehensible by recourse to neither our real ape ancestry nor our imaginary cultureless biology.
Man the Hunted
Man the Hunted - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Man the Hunted write by Donna Hart. This book was released on 2018-04-17. Man the Hunted available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Man the Hunted argues that primates, including the earliest members of the human family, have evolved as the prey of any number of predators, including wild cats and dogs, hyenas, snakes, crocodiles, and even birds. The authors' studies of predators on monkeys and apes are supplemented here with the observations of naturalists in the field and revealing interpretations of the fossil record. Eyewitness accounts of the 'man the hunted' drama being played out even now give vivid evidence of its prehistoric significance. This provocative view of human evolution suggests that countless adaptations that have allowed our species to survive (from larger brains to speech), stem from a considerably more vulnerable position on the food chain than we might like to imagine. The myth of early humans as fearless hunters dominating the earth obscures our origins as just one of many species that had to be cautious, depend on other group members, communicate danger, and come to terms with being merely one cog in the complex cycle of life.
