A Story of UsPub Date : 2021-05-06DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0003
L. Newson, P. Richerson
{"title":"Apes That Walked Upright (About Three Million Years Ago)","authors":"L. Newson, P. Richerson","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Your ancestors who lived three million years ago were still good at climbing trees, but they no longer spent most of their time in the forest. Their bodies were adapted to walking around on the ground and eating tougher food. They foraged in drier environments where food and sources of water were further apart, and they were more exposed to predators. This environment was particularly difficult for mothers and infants, but they could cope if they grouped together and helped each other. They could take turns being foragers and bringing back food and being babysitters, looking after their young ones in a defendable place with water nearby. This provided a different social environment than that of apes that stayed in the forest. Youngsters had to be quieter and less aggressive. And they were able to learn by watching several different adults and older children, observing different foraging techniques. There was more to learn, and natural selection would have favored the individuals who chose to learn more effective techniques.","PeriodicalId":228169,"journal":{"name":"A Story of Us","volume":"81 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126370910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A Story of UsPub Date : 2021-05-06DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0002
L. Newson, P. Richerson
{"title":"Ape Ancestor (About Seven Million Years Ago)","authors":"L. Newson, P. Richerson","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"If you had been born as one of your ancestors who lived seven million years ago, you would have been an ape living in an African forest. This ancestor would also be the ancestor of the chimpanzees and bonobos that still live in African forests. You would have already possessed some of the characteristics that make humans an unusual animal. You would have had a large brain (but not nearly as large as the brain you have now). You would have taken a long time to grow and reach maturity (but not has long as it took you as a human). And, by watching your mother as she foraged and negotiated her social life, you would have gained a head start on learning how to survive in your environment. Your mother wouldn’t have actively tried to teach you, but having her around as a model and protectors would help you learn.","PeriodicalId":228169,"journal":{"name":"A Story of Us","volume":"116 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114309352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A Story of UsPub Date : 2021-05-06DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0005
L. Newson, P. Richerson
{"title":"Humans Like Us (About 100,000 Years Ago)","authors":"L. Newson, P. Richerson","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"By 100,000 years ago, humans walked the Earth who were very similar to us physically and genetically, but they lived in small family bands and their culture was much simpler than the culture of any humans living today. The authors argue that these humans had the capacity to participate in more complex cultures and suggest that this capacity evolved because families had to cooperate closely to raise children in times when climate was very variable. Natural selection worked at two levels—on individuals but also on families. Families that were best at cooperating and raising the next generation were most likely to survive. These successful families passed on both their genes and their culture to the next generation. The chapter reviews evidence gained from studies of humans and comparisons of humans and chimpanzees that reveal humans’ unique motivation and ability to work together.","PeriodicalId":228169,"journal":{"name":"A Story of Us","volume":"243 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131082318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A Story of UsPub Date : 2021-05-06DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0004
L. Newson, P. Richerson
{"title":"Early Humans (About 1.5 Million Years Ago)","authors":"L. Newson, P. Richerson","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"By a million and a half years ago, there were humans with skeletons that were very similar to our human skeleton. They moved around as we do, and their diet was more like our diet. Some of them had skulls that held a brain quite a bit bigger than the brains of our earlier ancestors, but even the largest was considerably smaller than our brain. Humans from this time traveled from Africa into Eurasia. Children with larger brains needed to be fed more food, probably more food than mothers could get on their own, even if they helped one another. It seems likely, therefore, that males lived in the family groups with the mothers and youngsters, helping to find food and fight off predators. The authors argue that the kind of cooperation and culture we see in these humans suggests that they already had language, but it could have been much simpler than the language we use.","PeriodicalId":228169,"journal":{"name":"A Story of Us","volume":"93 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124543128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A Story of UsPub Date : 2021-05-06DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0001
L. Newson, P. Richerson
{"title":"Getting Beyond the Apemen","authors":"L. Newson, P. Richerson","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0001","url":null,"abstract":"This introductory chapter explains why a new story of human evolution is needed, and also lays the foundations of the story told in this book. One of the reasons we need a new story is that previous stories have concentrated on what our male ancestors were doing. Since survival is most at risk in the first years of life, it makes much more sense to concentrate on children and their mothers than on adult males. A brief account of the history of ideas in evolution by natural selection and human evolution provides readers with a background in evolutionary processes. Humans are a product of evolution, but we are not like other animals, because we are connected and readily share complex information. We are unique and our evolution was the result of a unique evolutionary process. To understand ourselves in evolutionary terms, it’s necessary to consider two intertwined evolutionary processes—genes and culture.","PeriodicalId":228169,"journal":{"name":"A Story of Us","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126898391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A Story of UsPub Date : 2021-05-06DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0006
L. Newson, P. Richerson
{"title":"Ice Age Humans (30,000 Years Ago)","authors":"L. Newson, P. Richerson","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Starting about 35,000 years ago, humans seem to have made a great leap forward culturally. The authors argue that this wasn’t because of genetic changes that caused the human brain to have increased capacity. It was because some groups culturally evolved the “social tools” that allowed them to maintain connections and share information over long distances. The groups with the most effective social tools managed to stay connected and to survive, and their descendants inherited this culture of connectedness. It’s likely that forming greater connectedness and more complex culture was necessary in order to survive the periods of high climate variability that were a feature of the last ice age.","PeriodicalId":228169,"journal":{"name":"A Story of Us","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115712315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A Story of UsPub Date : 2021-05-06DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0007
L. Newson, P. Richerson
{"title":"Building Today’s World","authors":"L. Newson, P. Richerson","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Once they were equipped with the social tools that allowed them to maintain greater connectedness, there was no looking back for our ancestors. They evolved much more complex cultures. Once the planet started to warm up and ice started to melt, humans could start to inhabit more of the land surface. As climate variability diminished and stable vegetation zones and habitats began to form, humans started to settle and become expert at exploiting a certain territory. If a group of families developed the knowledge and skills that allowed them to exploit a territory, there was no benefit in sharing that information with people outside the group. So instead of maintaining connections and sharing, people became tribal and, in many cases, territorial. Over thousands of years, families and tribes interacted and formed alliances, and their alliances broke down. But the general trend was for greater connectedness, increasingly complex cultures, and greater success. The human population grew.","PeriodicalId":228169,"journal":{"name":"A Story of Us","volume":"24 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114001544","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A Story of UsPub Date : 2021-05-06DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0008
L. Newson, P. Richerson
{"title":"Another Transformation","authors":"L. Newson, P. Richerson","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"During the last few centuries, the invention of new social tools made it possible for humans to interact and connect. The structure of society changed, and the role of the family was much diminished. This triggered a cultural transformation we are still in the middle of. “Modernity” is a good word for this transformation, because what we think of as modern changes all the time. And that is what our culture is doing. It is changing all the time. The transformation began in Europe, but now virtually all human populations have been touched by modernity. One of the most profound effects of this transformation is our attitude toward children.","PeriodicalId":228169,"journal":{"name":"A Story of Us","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126260367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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