Homo Symbolicus
The dawn of language, imagination and spirituality
University of Bergen & University of the Witwatersrand / University of Bordeaux I & University of Bergen
The emergence of symbolic culture, classically identified with the European cave paintings of the Ice Age, is now seen, in the light of recent groundbreaking discoveries, as a complex nonlinear process taking root in a remote past and in different regions of the planet. In this book the archaeologists responsible for some of these new discoveries, flanked by ethologists interested in primate cognition and cultural transmission, evolutionary psychologists modelling the emergence of metarepresentations, as well as biologists, philosophers, neuro-scientists and an astronomer combine their research findings. Their results call into question our very conception of human nature and animal behaviour, and they create epistemological bridges between disciplines that build the foundations for a novel vision of our lineage's cultural trajectory and the processes that have led to the emergence of human societies as we know them.
[Not in series, 168]
2011.
xi, 237 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Hardbound – Available
ISBN
9789027211897
|
EUR
99.00
|
USD
149.00
e-Book – Sold by e-book platforms
ISBN
9789027284099
|
EUR
99.00
|
USD
149.00
Table of Contents
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Editors’ introduction
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vii–x
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Acknowledgements
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xi–xii
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1–12
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13–48
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49–74
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75–96
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97–110
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111–132
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133–140
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141–162
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163–184
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185–204
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205–224
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Index
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225–238
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Quotes
“The volume as a whole offers a useful interdisciplinary source for students of human evolution, reflecting well the current state of knowledge. It is written in an authoritative but accessible manner, is well edited and features excellent figures. I agree with the editors' assertion that progress critically depends on archaeological evidence brought into play in concert with palaeoenvironmental science.”
Huw S. Groucutt, University of Oxford, in Antiquity 86 (2012)
“Generally, this edited volume is a good introduction to issues about the evolution of the modern mind. [...] The editors and contributors to this volume should be congratulated for their success in introducing novel concepts and approaches to the study of what makes modern humans unique—our brains and their cognitive baggage. But they also make it clear that modern Homo sapiens may not have been as unique as some of us paleoanthropologists would prefer.”
Pamela R. Willoughby, University of Alberta, in PaleoAnthropology 2012, pag. 231-232.
“[T]he variety of perspectives in this volume is a strength. This particular combination of ideas on the evolution of human cognition is not available anywhere else, and is a useful starting point for research into this complex topic. It is a detailed account of the list of archaeological items considered to be symbolic, with the other chapters providing stimulating and thought-provoking perspectives on the early primatological roots of language and/or symbolism, its relationship to religion and complex cognition, and its philosophical and biological context.”
Sarah Wurz, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa and University of Bergen, Norway, in the South African Archaeological Bulletin 67 (196), pag. 279-284, 2012
Subjects
Benjamins Subject classification
Sociology
BIC Subject
JHM: Anthropology
BISAC Subject
SOC002010: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number: 2011031012