Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us about Human Social Evolution

Nine of the world's top primate experts compose the most extensive picture to date of what the behavior of monkeys and apes can tell us about our own evolution as a species.

Table of Contents:
Contents Frans B. M. de Waal - Introduction 1 Anne E. Pusey - Of Genes and Apes: Chimpanzee Social Organization and Reproduction 2 Frans B. M. de Waal - Apes from Venus: Bonobos and Human Social Evolution 3 Karen B. Strier - Beyond the Apes: Reasons to Consider the Entire Primate Order 4 Craig B. Stanford - The Ape’s Gift: Meat-eating, Meat-sharing, and Human Evolution 5 Richard W. Wrangham - Out of the Pan, Into the Fire: How Our Ancestors’ Evolution Depended on What They Ate 6 Richard W. Byrne - Social and Technical Forms of Primate Intelligence 7 Robin I . M. Dunbar - Brains on Two Legs: Group Size and the Evolution of Intelligence 8 Charles T. Snowdon - From Primate Communication to Human Language 9 William C. McGrew - The Nature of Culture: Prospects and Pitfallsof Cultural Primatology Notes Bibliography Contributors Index

About the Author :
Frans B. M. de Waal is C. H. Candler Professor of Primate Behavior in the Psychology Department and Director of Living Links, part of the Yerkes Primate Center, Emory University. Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology and Director of the Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Oxford. William McGrew is Professor of Anthropology and Zoology at Miami University (Ohio). Craig B. Stanford is Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology and Co-Director of the Jane Goodall Research Center at the University of Southern California. Karen B. Strier is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Richard W. Wrangham is Ruth Moore Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University.

Review :
Are we so separate from our nearest relatives that studying apes' behavior has nothing to teach us about ourselves? Or does watching how apes interact socially give us clues about our own evolution? The authors come down solidly on the side of the applicability of primate studies to the study of humans. Growing from a 1997 conference on human evolution, this selection of nine essays by working primatologists include speculations about the origins of human social evolution from the perspective of their studies on other primates...All of the essays are accessible to the general reader. Booklist 20010401 [An] enlightening discussion of how scientists' ideas about human forebears have been shaped--and perhaps led astray--by extrapolations from intensive study of a few primates. Whether you are interested in human origins or in how other animals live their lives, [this book] is a superb synthesis of current thinking and research about our closest nonhuman relatives. -- Susan Okie Washington Post Book World 20010601 A fascinating bunch of essays...They re-examine human social evolution from the perspective of naturalistic observations of non-human primates, and then extrapolate to humans. -- Laura Spinney New Scientist 20010528 De Waal's is just one of a fascinating bunch of essays by primatologists in Tree of Origin. They re-examine human social evolution from the perspective of naturalistic observations of non-human primates, and then extrapolate to humans. -- Laura Spinney New Scientist