HUMAN EVOLUTION CL SEE 775055 [Hardcover]

John L Bradshaw (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0863775047 | ISBN-13: 978-0863775048 | Publication Date: December 1, 1997 | Edition: 1

The last decade has seen an explosive burst of new information about human origins and our evolutionary status with respect to other species. We have long been considered unique as upright, bipedal creatures endowed with language, the ability to use tools, to think and introspect. We now know that other creatures may be more or less capable of similar behaviour, and that these human capacities in many cases have long evolutionary trajectories. Our information about such matters comes from a diverse variety of disciplines, including experimental and neuropsychology, primatology, ethology, archaeology, palaeontology, comparative linguistics and molecular biology. It is the interdisciplinary nature of the newly-emerging information which bears upon one of the profoundest scientific human questions - our origin and place in the animal kingdom, whether unique or otherwise - which makes the general topic so fascinating to layperson, student, and expert alike. The book attempts to integrate across a wide range of disciplines an evolutionary view of human psychology, with particular reference to language, praxis and aesthetics. A chapter on evolution, from the appearance of life to the earliest mammals, is followed by one which examines the appearance of primates, hominids and the advent of bipedalism. There follows a more detailed account of the various species of Homo, the morphology and origin of modern H. sapiens sapiens as seen from the archaeological/palaeontological and molecular-biological perspectives. The origins of art and an aesthetic sense in the Acheulian and Mousterian through to the Upper Palaeolithic are seen in the context of the psychology of art. Two chapters on language address its nature and realization centrally and peripherally, the prehistory and neuropsychology of speech, and evidence for speech and/or language in our hominid ancestors. A chapter on tool use and praxis examines such behaviour in other species, primate and non-primate, the neurology of praxis and its possible relation to language. Encephalization and the growth of the brain, phylogenetically and ontogenetically, and its relationship to intellectual capacity leads on finally to a consideration of intelligence, social intelligence, consciousness and self awareness. A final chapter reviews the issues covered. The book, of around 70.000 words of text, includes over 500 references over half of which date from 1994 or later.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Psychology Press; 1 edition (December 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0863775047
• ISBN-13: 978-0863775048
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,681,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb brief summary of human evolution, October 4, 1999

By 

DR P. Dash "drdneuro" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Human Evolution (Paperback)

In just under 200 pages, JL Bradshaw, an Australian neuroscientist, presents a clearly written view of the evolution of the human mind. No pop sociobiology material here; the book fairly summarizes a large amount of research on topics ranging from the hominid fossil record to the evolution of language, tool use and social intelligence. If you want to get a quick handle on these issues, this book is highly recommended.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What an empirically-based evolutionary psychology should look like, December 3, 2008

By 

Matthew D. Skinta "lysander18" (San Francisco, CA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Human Evolution (Paperback)

While I'm typically not a fan of attempts at evolutionary psychology or sociobiology, most simply being faddish post hoc ideas that are ultimately untestable, this book strikes a different path.

Bradshaw does a brilliant job of, first, providing a brief yet thorough summary of the course of evolution. He follows this with an introduction to archeological research on brain pans and skull indentations, and with appropriate caveats explains what can be gleaned from this information. Citing the b...more While I'm typically not a fan of attempts at evolutionary psychology or sociobiology, most simply being faddish post hoc ideas that are ultimately untestable, this book strikes a different path.

Bradshaw does a brilliant job of, first, providing a brief yet thorough summary of the course of evolution. He follows this with an introduction to archeological research on brain pans and skull indentations, and with appropriate caveats explains what can be gleaned from this information. Citing the best research out there on psycholinguistics and neuroanatomy, he then builds a case for tracing the development of the most human of traits: speech. Due to the importance and centrality of the development of speech on evolution, and the equally important presence of major speech areas on the surface of the brain such that changes in the skull yield clues about the evolution of certain regions, Bradshaw sets a course for laying out some likely hypotheses for how the brain evolved.

This definitely isn't an easy or pop-science book, and it's hard to say how much I was helped in his sections on VOTs and other technical aspects of psychoaccoustic research by the fact that a close friend and colleague of mine does active work in that field - she has explained nuances of the research in this area to me multiple times over the years! That said, it's certainly worth the struggle, and for anyone with an interest in evolution and psychology this is hands down the best science-based book out there!