Éditions Médicales internationales

Commentaire :

Résumé :

Neanderthals flourished in Europe and western Asia for about 100,000 years in some of the harshest conditions ever endured by members of the human evolutionary family. In fact, they did as well, if not better under such conditions than our direct forebears: Homo sapiens, who migrated to the same area from Africa. But, according to archaeologist TomWynn and neuropsychologist Fred Coolidge about 50,000 years ago, the tide changed dramatically. Members of H. sapiens, they claim, experienced an increase in their memory (probably owing to a genetic mutation) and that changed the story of human evolution. This capacity, Coolidge and Wynn argue, allowed H. sapiens to retain and manipulate more information and this, in turn, led to a number of evolutionary leaps forward: advances in tool making, long-range planning for seasonal hunting, storytelling, and symbolic expressions in artwork and body ornamentation. Modern thinking was born.In The Rise of Homo Sapiens and the Fall of Neanderthal: The Evolution of Modern Thinking Coolidge and Wynn's present their provocative new theory using evidence from both archaeology and neuropsychology. They show how their theory of Enhanced Working Memory (EWM) may ultimately account for the evolutionary ascendancy of Homo sapiens, the extinction of Neanderthals, and why elaborate and intricate cave art, ritual burials, and personal ornamentation became commonplace in an explosion of culture beginning about 50,000 years ago.Cognitive archaeology is a quickly growing discipline yet archaeologists have been slow to adopt current theories, models, and findings within contemporary cognitive science. The Rise of Homo Sapiens will serve as a unique introduction and primer into both disciplines. Designed to introduce the workings of the brain to anthropologists and archaeologists, who may have little background in neuropsychology, it is also written to introduce college students (at all levels) to the fascinating interface of the worlds of anthropology and neuropsychology by way of the quirks and mysteries in archaeological record. All anthropological and neuropsychological terms are clearly defined and explained either in the text or by an expanded glossary of terms, which produces a highly readable book that will be of interest to any intrigued by the puzzles of human evolution and accessible to all.

Sommaire :

1. Introduction.

2. The Brain.

3. Working Memory.

4. Brain Evolution.

5. Primates.

6. Early Hominins.

7. Homo erectus.

8. The First Major Leap in Cognition: The Tree to Ground Sleep Transition.

9. Homo heidelbergensis and the Beginnings of Modern Thinking.

10. The Rise and Fall of Neandertal.

11. The Second Major Leap in Cognition: Enhanced Working Memory and the Evolution of Modern Thinking.

Glossary.

References

Public concerné :

students and researchers of human evolution in anthropology and biology departments