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Author: Clive Finlayson Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 0191503770 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 223
Book Description
Taking an ecological approach to our evolution, Clive Finlayson considers the origins of modern humans within the context of a drying climate and changing landscapes. Finlayson argues that environmental change, particularly availability of water, played a critical role in shaping the direction of human evolution, contributing to our spread and success. He argues that our ancestors carved a niche for themselves by leaving the forest and forcing their way into a long-established community of carnivores in a tropical savannah as climate changes opened up the landscape. They took their chance at high noon, when most other predators were asleep. Adapting to this new lifestyle by shedding their hair and developing an active sweating system to keep cool, being close to fresh water was vital. As the climate dried, our ancestors, already bipedal, became taller and slimmer, more adept at travelling farther in search of water. The challenges of seeking water in a drying landscape moulded the minds and bodies of early humans, and directed their migrations and eventual settlements. In this fresh and provocative view of a seven-million-year evolutionary journey, Finlayson demonstrates the radical implications for the interpretation of fossils and technologies and shows that understanding humans within an ecological context provides insights into the emergence and spread of Homo sapiens sapiens worldwide.
Author: Clive Finlayson Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 019965879X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 223
Book Description
In The Improbable Primate, Clive Finlayson gives a provocative view of human evolution, arguing that the critical factor that shaped us was water. Questioning current accounts of tools and our spread from Africa, he presents an ecological viewpoint.
Author: Alan de Queiroz Publisher: Basic Books ISBN: 0465069762 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 370
Book Description
Throughout the world, closely related species are found on landmasses separated by wide stretches of ocean. What explains these far-flung distributions? Why are such species found where they are across the Earth? Since the discovery of plate tectonics, scientists have conjectured that plants and animals were scattered over the globe by riding pieces of ancient supercontinents as they broke up. In the past decade, however, that theory has foundered, as the genomic revolution has made reams of new data available. And the data has revealed an extraordinary, stranger-than-fiction story that has sparked a scientific upheaval. In The Monkey's Voyage, biologist Alan de Queiroz describes the radical new view of how fragmented distributions came into being: frogs and mammals rode on rafts and icebergs, tiny spiders drifted on storm winds, and plant seeds were carried in the plumage of sea-going birds to create the map of life we see today. In other words, these organisms were not simply constrained by continental fate; they were the makers of their own geographic destiny. And as de Queiroz shows, the effects of oceanic dispersal have been crucial in generating the diversity of life on Earth, from monkeys and guinea pigs in South America to beech trees and kiwi birds in New Zealand. By toppling the idea that the slow process of continental drift is the main force behind the odd distributions of organisms, this theory highlights the dynamic and unpredictable nature of the history of life. In the tradition of John McPhee's Basin and Range, The Monkey's Voyage is a beautifully told narrative that strikingly reveals the importance of contingency in history and the nature of scientific discovery.
Author: Roderick Sprague Publisher: Northwest Anthropology ISBN: Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 133
Book Description
Diet 123: A Computerized Dietary Analysis Program Using Lotus 123TM - Nicolette I. Teufel and George J. Teufel The Cultural Ecology of Hunting and Potlatches Among the Lillooet Indians - Steven Romanoff Abstracts of Papers, 40th Annual Northwest Anthropological Conference Jargonization Before Chinook Jargon - William J. Samarin Improbable Species, Deceit, and Social Control in the Context of Behavioral Ecology - Richard Beeson Protecting American Indian Sacred Geography - Deward E. Walker, Jr.
Author: Clive Finlayson Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0192518119 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 245
Book Description
Since the late 1980s the dominant theory of human origins has been that a 'cognitive revolution' (C.50,000 years ago) led to the advent of our species, Homo sapiens. As a result of this revolution our species spread and eventually replaced all existing archaic Homo species, ultimately leading to the superiority of modern humans. Or so we thought. As Clive Finlayson explains, the latest advances in genetics prove that there was significant interbreeding between Modern Humans and the Neanderthals. All non-Africans today carry some Neanderthal genes. We have also discovered aspects of Neanderthal behaviour that indicate that they were not cognitively inferior to modern humans, as we once thought, and in fact had their own rituals and art. Finlayson, who is at the forefront of this research, recounts the discoveries of his team, providing evidence that Neanderthals caught birds of prey, and used their feathers for symbolic purposes. There is also evidence that Neanderthals practised other forms of art, as the recently discovered engravings in Gorham's Cave Gibraltar indicate. Linking all the recent evidence, The Smart Neanderthal casts a new light on the Neanderthals and the "Cognitive Revolution". Finlayson argues that there was no revolution and, instead, modern behaviour arose gradually and independently among different populations of Modern Humans and Neanderthals. Some practices were even adopted by Modern Humans from the Neanderthals. Finlayson overturns classic narratives of human origins, and raises important questions about who we really are.
Author: Mark Maslin Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0198704526 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 257
Book Description
One of the fundamental questions of our existence is why we are so smart. There are lots of drawbacks to having a large brain, including the huge food intake needed to keep the organ running, the frequency with which it goes wrong, and our very high infant and mother mortality rates compared with other mammals, due to the difficulty of giving birth to offspring with very large heads. So why did evolution favour the brainy ape? This question has been widely debated among biological anthropologists, and in recent years, Maslin and his colleagues have pioneered a new theory that might just be the answer. Looking back to a crucial period some 1.9 million years ago, when brain capacity increased by as much as 80%, The Cradle of Humanity explores the implications of two adaptive responses by our hominin ancestors to rapid climatic changes - big jaws, and big brains. Maslin argues that the impact of changing landscapes and fluctuating climates that led to the appearance of intermittent freshwater lakes in East Africa may have played a key role in human evolution. Alongside the physical evidence of fossils and tools, he considers social theories of why a large, complex brain would have provided a major advantage when trying to survive in the constantly changing East African landscape.
Author: Peter Andrews Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1316412164 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 331
Book Description
Our closest living relatives are the chimpanzee and bonobo. We share many characteristics with them, but our lineages diverged millions of years ago. Who in fact was our last common ancestor? Bringing together ecology, evolution, genetics, anatomy and geology, this book provides a new perspective on human evolution. What can fossil apes tell us about the origins of human evolution? Did the last common ancestor of apes and humans live in trees or on the ground? What did it eat, and how did it survive in a world full of large predators? Did it look anything like living apes? Andrews addresses these questions and more to reconstruct the common ancestor and its habitat. Synthesising thirty-five years of work on both ancient environments and fossil and modern ape anatomy, this book provides unique new insights into the evolutionary processes that led to the origins of the human lineage.
Author: Liam Fox Publisher: Biteback Publishing ISBN: 178590888X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 263
Book Description
Following Russia's aggressive war in Ukraine, the world is suddenly gripped by concerns over energy security. And yet, there is an even greater threat ahead – one that is much more likely to shape the events of the twenty-first century than the competition for oil or gas. The combination of an ever-increasing global population, climate change, industrialisation, urbanisation and limited natural resources means that one difficulty, above all, will shape the political, economic and security environment in the years ahead: that is water. If people and nations will fight for fossil fuels, it is nothing compared to what they will do for the most vital natural resource of all. As both a citizen who has supported water charities and worked in the NHS and a politician who has dealt with security and economic issues, Liam Fox tells the story of water and the problems it presents in a more complete way than ever before. The Coming Storm unites a range of concerns that are often written about separately but seldom together and provides a comprehensible and compelling call for urgent action.
Author: Patrice Adret Publisher: Frontiers Media SA ISBN: 2832536816 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 201
Book Description
Mammalian vocal duets and turn-taking exchanges — long, coordinated acoustic signals exchanged between two individuals— are primarily found in family-living, pair-bonded mammals with a socially monogamous lifestyle (some rodents, some lemurs, tarsiers, titi monkeys, a Mentawai langur, gibbons and siamangs). Duetting and turn-taking patterns combine visual, chemical, tactile and auditory cues to produce some of the most exuberant displays in the realm of animal communication. How and why such phenotypes evolved independently across main lineages are fundamental questions at the core of the nature-nurture debate. Duetting styles ranging from antiphonal (non-overlapping) to simultaneous (overlapping) emissions have now been documented in various taxa, some of which are quite reminiscent of turn-taking rules in human conversation. Nonetheless, much remains to be learned about this complex motor skill, and at all four levels of analysis, namely (1) developmental processes, (2) causal mechanisms (3) functional properties and (4) evolutionary history. Given the strong link between this form of coordinated singing and pair-bonding, gaining a deeper understanding of this kind of cooperative behavior will likely shed more light on the deep evolutionary roots of human culture, language and music.
Author: Francesco E. Marino Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317380118 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 265
Book Description
Fatigue is a condition spanning the breadth of human functioning in health and disease and is a central concern in sport and exercise. Even so we are yet to fully understand its causes. One reason for this lack of understanding is that we seldom consider fatigue from an evolutionary perspective - as an adaptation that provided reproductive success. This ground-breaking book outlines the evidence that fatigue is a result of adaptations distinctive to humans. It argues that humans developed adaptations which led to enhanced fatigue resistance compared with other mammals and discusses the implications in the context of exercise, health and performance. Highly illustrated throughout, it covers topics such as defining and measuring fatigue, the emotional aspect of fatigue, how thermoregulation affects the human capacity to resist fatigue, and fatigue in disease. Human Fatigue is essential reading for all exercise scientists as well as graduate and undergraduate students in the broad field of physiology and exercise physiology.
Author: Dale Peterson Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520942949 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 749
Book Description
Elephant Reflections brings award-winning wildlife photographer Karl Ammann's gorgeous images together with a revelatory text by writer Dale Peterson to illuminate one of nature's greatest and most original works of art: the elephant. The photographs move from the purely aesthetic to the informative, depicting animals who are at once enigmatic, individual, mysterious, elusive, and iconic. In riveting prose, Peterson introduces the work of field scientists in Africa and explains their recent astonishing discoveries. He then explores the natural history and conservation status of African elephants and discusses the politics of ivory. Elephant Reflections is a book that could change the way the world thinks about elephants while we still have some measure of control over their fate.
Author: Clive Finlayson
Author: Clive Finlayson
Author: Alan de Queiroz
Author: Roderick Sprague
Author: Clive Finlayson
Author: Mark Maslin
Author: Peter Andrews
Author: Liam Fox
Author: Patrice Adret
Author: Francesco E. Marino
Author: Dale Peterson