Results by title
71 books match the query 'Human beings' and 3 start with h
How We Became Human
Mimetic Theory and the Science of Evolutionary OriginsPierpaolo Antonello
Michigan State University Press, 2015
From his groundbreaking Violence and the Sacred and Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, René Girard’s mimetic theory is presented as elucidating “the origins of culture.” He posits that archaic religion (or “the sacred”), particularly in its dynamics of sacrifice and ritual, is a neglected and major key to unlocking the enigma of “how we became human.” French philosopher of science Michel Serres states that Girard’s theory provides a Darwinian theory of culture because it “proposes a dynamic, shows an evolution and gives a universal explanation.” This major claim has, however, remained underscrutinized by scholars working on Girard’s theory, and it is mostly overlooked within the natural and social sciences. Joining disciplinary worlds, this book aims to explore this ambitious claim, invoking viewpoints as diverse as evolutionary culture theory, cultural anthropology, archaeology, cognitive psychology, ethology, and philosophy. The contributors provide major evidence in favor of Girard’s hypothesis. Equally, Girard’s theory is presented as having the potential to become for the human and social sciences something akin to the integrating framework that present-day biological science owes to Darwin—something compatible with it and complementary to it in accounting for the still remarkably little understood phenomenon of human emergence.
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Human Adaptation and Accommodation
A. Roberto Frisancho
University of Michigan Press, 1993
How human beings have adapted to a wide range of stressful environments – extreme temperatures, solar radiation, high altitudes, and nutritional stress – has been the subject of much research in recent years by psychologists, biologists, and physical anthropologists. Here for the first time Dr. Frisancho presents in a single volume knowledge on human adaptation that has previously been widely scattered and highly specialized. He examines from physiological and anthropological perspectives the short- and long-term reactions of the human body to various environmental stresses. Based on research that has been done in the laboratory and from studies of native populations living in stressful environments, Dr. Frisancho discusses the effects of extreme heat and cold, solar radiation and the selective value of skin pigmentation, high altitude hypoxia, growth in high altitude populations, diseases related to life in high altitudes, diseases and effects of undernourishment, and disease and the westernization of diet. This work is a valuable and much needed introduction to the field of human adaptation.
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Human Dispersal, Human Evolution, and the Sea
The Palaeolithic Seafaring DebateJohn F. Cherry
University Press of Colorado, 2025
Human Dispersal, Human Evolution, and the Sea is the first book-length treatment of what has become known as the global Palaeolithic seafaring debate. Until recently, common consensus dictated that only in the last ten thousand years have humans routinely, permanently, and cross-culturally traversed seas and oceans to colonize new lands. New (and sometimes contentious) data from the Mediterranean and Island Southeast Asia challenge that consensus, suggesting to some researchers that long-distance voyaging is a behavior of great antiquity. These scholars suggest that oceans and seas facilitated and encouraged planetary dispersal in our own genus rather than acting as barriers to dispersal. If this model is correct, it necessitates a radical rethinking of not only the big patterns of human history but also more deeply our models of emergent human behavior and when the capacity for highly complex and coordinated group behaviors emerged.
Exploring the data in detail, the authors here show how a complex series of interrelated problems has tended to be treated in reductionist or overly simplistic terms. Cherry and Leppard elucidate this complexity by bringing to bear perspectives from archaeology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. They demonstrate not only that a series of unique circumstances—evolutionary, behavioral, environmental, and economic—conspired to drive mass, ubiquitous global colonization over the last ten millennia; but also that earlier, sparser data provide real insight into key social and behavioral thresholds, even if there is little evidence to support the “oceans as highways” model for species other than our own.
A major intervention in this important debate, Human Dispersal, Human Evolution, and the Sea explains the deep significance of the problem and the profound implications for history, archaeology, and biological anthropology.
Exploring the data in detail, the authors here show how a complex series of interrelated problems has tended to be treated in reductionist or overly simplistic terms. Cherry and Leppard elucidate this complexity by bringing to bear perspectives from archaeology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. They demonstrate not only that a series of unique circumstances—evolutionary, behavioral, environmental, and economic—conspired to drive mass, ubiquitous global colonization over the last ten millennia; but also that earlier, sparser data provide real insight into key social and behavioral thresholds, even if there is little evidence to support the “oceans as highways” model for species other than our own.
A major intervention in this important debate, Human Dispersal, Human Evolution, and the Sea explains the deep significance of the problem and the profound implications for history, archaeology, and biological anthropology.
[more]