Switch to: Citations

Add references

You must login to add references.
  1. Human Social Evolution: A Comparison of Hunter-gatherer and Chimpanzee Social Organization.Robert Layton & Sean O'Hara - 2010 - In Layton Robert & O'Hara Sean (eds.), Social Brain, Distributed Mind. pp. 83.
    This chapter compares the social behaviour of human hunter-gatherers with that of the better-studied chimpanzee species, Pan troglodytes, in an attempt to pinpoint the unique features of human social evolution. Although hunter-gatherers and chimpanzees living in central Africa have similar body weights, humans live at much lower population densities due to their greater dependence on predation. Human foraging parties have longer duration than those of chimpanzees, lasting hours rather than minutes, and a higher level of mutual dependence, through the division (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Kinship Without Words.Robert Layton - 2021 - Biological Theory 16 (3):135-147.
    This article seeks to identify at what point in hominid evolution language would have become adaptive. It starts by recalling the distinction between kin-selected altruism and reciprocal altruism, noting that the former is characteristic of social insects while the latter is found among some species of social mammal. Reciprocal altruism depends on the exchange of information assuring partners of the other’s continued friendly intent, as in the iterated prisoner’s dilemma. The article focuses on species that practice “fission–fusion”: social behaviour, where (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Rethinking Incest Avoidance: Beyond the Disciplinary Groove of Culture-First Views.Robert A. Wilson - 2020 - Biological Theory 16 (3):162-175.
    The Westermarck Effect posits that intimate association during childhood promotes human incest avoidance. In previous work, I articulated and defended a version of the Westermarck Effect by developing a phylogenetic argument that has purchase within primatology but that has had more limited appeal for cultural anthropologists due to their commitment to conventionalist or culture-first accounts of incest avoidance. Here I look to advance the discussion of incest and incest avoidance beyond culture-first accounts in two ways. First, I shall dig deeper (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Kin Against Kin: Internal Co-selection and the Coherence of Kinship Typologies.Sam Passmore, Wolfgang Barth, Kyla Quinn, Simon J. Greenhill, Nicholas Evans & Fiona M. Jordan - 2021 - Biological Theory 16 (3):176-193.
    Across the world people in different societies structure their family relationships in many different ways. These relationships become encoded in their languages as kinship terminology, a word set that maps variably onto a vast genealogical grid of kinship categories, each of which could in principle vary independently. But the observed diversity of kinship terminology is considerably smaller than the enormous theoretical design space. For the past century anthropologists have captured this variation in typological schemes with only a small number of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • The Phylogenetic Roots of Human Kinship Systems.Joan B. Silk - 2021 - Biological Theory 16 (3):127-134.
    Nonhuman primates don’t have formal kinship systems, but genetic relatedness shapes patterns of residence, behavior, mating preferences, and cognition in the primate order. The goal of this article is to provide insight about the ancestral foundations on which the first human kinship systems were built. In order for evolution to favor nepotistic biases in behavior, individuals need to have opportunities to interact with their relatives and to be able to identify them. Both these requirements impose constraints on the evolution of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Towards an Evolutionary Account of Human Kinship Systems.Ronald J. Planer - 2020 - Biological Theory 16 (3):148-161.
    Kinship plays a foundational role in organizing human social behavior on both local and more global scales. Hence, any adequate account of the evolution of human sociality must include an account of the evolution of human kinship. This article aims to make progress on the latter task by providing a few key pieces of an evolutionary model of kinship systems. The article is especially focused on the connection between primate social cognition and the origins of kinship systems. I argue that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter.J. Henrich - unknown
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   197 citations