ABSTRACT
The Evolution of Human Cleverness presents a unique introduction to the way human cognitive abilities have evolved. The book comprises a series of mini-essays on distinct topics in which technical terms are simplified, considering how humans made the long journey from our ape-like ancestors to become capable of higher-level reasoning and problem solving.
All the topics are cross-linked, allowing the reader to dip in and out, but certain key concepts run through the underlying reasoning. Chiefly, these are adaptation and selection, the distinction between ultimate and proximate causes of behaviour, gene–culture co-evolution, and domain-general versus domain-specific cognitive processes. The book should help the reader draw lessons for the human species as a whole, especially in view of the environmental threats to its own existence.
Entries have been carefully crafted to cut through scientific jargon, providing bite-sized and digestible chunks of knowledge, making the topic accessible for students and lay readers alike. The author draws on research from diverse fields including Psychology, Anthropology, Archaeology, Biology, and Neuroscience to provide an unbiased account of the field, making it an ideal text for students of all levels.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 2|17 pages
Essential themes
chapter 3|1 pages
Proximate and ultimate causes
chapter 4|2 pages
Adaptation and selection
chapter 5|3 pages
Nature, nurture, and culture
chapter 6|3 pages
Human uniqueness
chapter 7|2 pages
Reasoning about the past
chapter 8|2 pages
Is cleverness ‘genetic’?
chapter 9|2 pages
Psychologies: theories and methods
part 3|20 pages
Hominin ancestors
chapter 10|2 pages
Hominin and primate relatives
chapter 11|1 pages
Ancestral hominins
chapter 12|2 pages
Bipedalism
chapter 13|1 pages
Early Homo
chapter 14|2 pages
Late Homo
chapter 15|1 pages
Homo floresiensis
chapter 16|1 pages
Who or what is Homo sapiens?
chapter 17|1 pages
How clever were Neanderthals?
chapter 18|2 pages
Behavioural modernity
chapter 19|2 pages
Hominin life history
chapter 20|3 pages
Family structure, pair bonding, and communal breeding
part 4|19 pages
Selection and transmission of traits
chapter 21|3 pages
Genetic inheritance
chapter 22|2 pages
Sexual selection
chapter 23|3 pages
Group selection
chapter 24|1 pages
Exaptation
chapter 25|1 pages
Non-selectionist processes
chapter 26|2 pages
Gene–culture co-evolution
chapter 27|2 pages
Genes and hominin evolution
chapter 28|3 pages
The heritability of intelligence and cleverness
part 5|22 pages
Contentious theoretical issues
chapter 29|1 pages
Personal and sub-personal explanations
chapter 30|2 pages
Intentionality
chapter 31|2 pages
Mentalism in evolutionary explanation
chapter 32|3 pages
Cognitive science versus behavioural theory
chapter 33|4 pages
Representation
chapter 34|2 pages
Modularity
chapter 35|2 pages
Two types of process for the control of behaviour?
chapter 36|2 pages
Recursion
chapter 37|2 pages
The meaning of signs
part 6|26 pages
Comparing ourselves with other primates
chapter 38|3 pages
Differences between ape and human communication
chapter 39|2 pages
Primate gestures and the evolution of language
chapter 40|4 pages
Perspective-taking in non-human primates
chapter 41|3 pages
Social learning in non-human primates
chapter 42|3 pages
Understanding the physical world
chapter 43|3 pages
Pro-social behaviour and cooperation in non-human primates
chapter 44|3 pages
Signing chimpanzees
chapter 45|2 pages
Home-reared chimpanzees
chapter 46|1 pages
Primate intelligence
part 7|29 pages
How did hominins evolve socially?
chapter 47|2 pages
Self-awareness and identity
chapter 48|4 pages
Social learning: imitation
chapter 49|2 pages
The social brain hypothesis
chapter 50|3 pages
Cooperation
chapter 51|4 pages
Social reciprocity
chapter 52|4 pages
Perspective-taking in hominins
chapter 53|4 pages
Displaced reference and pretend play
chapter 54|4 pages
Self-domestication
part 8|11 pages
The brain
chapter 55|3 pages
Brain size and early development
chapter 56|3 pages
Brain evolution: structure and function
chapter 57|1 pages
Handedness
chapter 58|2 pages
The mirror neuron system
part 9|9 pages
Learning from archaeology
chapter 59|2 pages
Models in cognitive archaeology
chapter 60|3 pages
What can stone-tools tell us?
chapter 61|2 pages
Fire
part 10|17 pages
Language
chapter 62|3 pages
The evolution of symbols
chapter 63|3 pages
Protolanguage
chapter 64|1 pages
Origins of language: fossil and DNA evidence
chapter 65|4 pages
Origins of language: as communication
chapter 66|4 pages
Origins of language: as faculty
part 11|32 pages
Becoming complex and clever
chapter 67|2 pages
Evolution of ‘consciousness’
chapter 68|3 pages
The social self
chapter 69|3 pages
Memory: living in time
chapter 70|2 pages
Working memory
chapter 71|2 pages
Meta-cognition
chapter 72|3 pages
Abstraction and analogy
chapter 73|2 pages
Imagination and counterfactual thought
chapter 74|4 pages
Agency: getting it all together
chapter 75|3 pages
The evolution of reasoning
chapter 76|3 pages
Intelligence versus applied intelligence
chapter 77|3 pages
Framing behaviour functionally
part 12|18 pages
Putting it all together