Illuminating Human Evolution: 150 Years after Darwin

217 Pages·5.018 MB·English

by  Jaume Bertranpetit, Juli Peretó

Evolutionary Studies
Jaume Bertranpetit
Juli Peretó   Editors
Illuminating
Human
Evolution: 150
Years after
Darwin
Evolutionary Studies
SeriesEditor
NaruyaSaitou,NationalInstituteofGenetics,Mishima,Japan
Everythingishistory,startingfromtheBigBangortheoriginoftheuniversetothe
presenttime.Thishistoricalnatureoftheuniverseisclearifwelookatevolutionof
organisms.EvolutionisoneofmostbasicfeaturesoflifewhichappearedonEarth
morethan3.7billionyearsago.Consideringtheimportanceofevolutioninbiology,
we are inaugurating this series. Any aspect of evolutionary studies on any kind of
organism is a potential target of the series. Life started at the molecular level, thus
molecularevolutionisoneimportantareaintheseries,butnon-molecularstudiesare
also within its scope, especially those studies on evolution of multicellular organ-
isms.Evolutionaryphenomenacoveredbytheseriesincludetheoriginoflife,fossils
ingeneral,Earth–lifeinteraction,evolutionofprokaryotesandeukaryotes,viraland
protist evolution, the emergence of multicellular organisms, phenotypic and geno-
micdiversityofcertainorganismgroups,andmore.Theoreticalstudiesonevolution
arealsocoveredwithinthespectrumofthisnewseries.
(cid:129)
Jaume Bertranpetit Juli Peretó
Editors
Illuminating Human
Evolution: 150 Years after
Darwin
Editors
JaumeBertranpetit JuliPeretó
MELIS-UniversitatPompeuFabra InstitutdeBiologiaIntegrativadeSistemes
IBE,InstitutdeBiologiaEvolutiva I2SysBio
(UPF-CSIC) UniversitatdeValència-CSIC
Barcelona,Spain Paterna,Spain
ISSN2509-484X ISSN2509-4858 (electronic)
EvolutionaryStudies
ISBN978-981-19-3245-8 ISBN978-981-19-3246-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3246-5
Thetranslationwasdonewiththehelpofartificialintelligence(machinetranslationbytheserviceDeepL.
com).Asubsequenthumanrevisionwasdoneprimarilyintermsofcontent.
TranslationfromtheSpanishlanguageedition:“Iluminandolaevoluciónhumana:Cientocincuentaaños
despuésdeDarwin”byJaumeBertranpetitandJuliPeretó,©UnitatdeCulturaCientíficaidelaInnovació
delaUniversitatdeValència2021.PublishedbyPublicacionsdelaUniversitatdeValència.AllRights
Reserved.
©TheEditor(s)(ifapplicable)andTheAuthor(s),underexclusivelicensetoSpringerNatureSingapore
PteLtd.2022
Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsaresolelyandexclusivelylicensedbythePublisher,whether
thewholeorpartofthematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsofreprinting,reuseofillustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilarmethodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped.
Theuseofgeneraldescriptivenames,registerednames,trademarks,servicemarks,etc.inthispublication
doesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfromtherelevant
protectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse.
The publisher, the authors, and the editorsare safeto assume that the adviceand informationin this
bookarebelievedtobetrueandaccurateatthedateofpublication.Neitherthepublishernortheauthorsor
theeditorsgiveawarranty,expressedorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinorforany
errorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade.Thepublisherremainsneutralwithregardtojurisdictional
claimsinpublishedmapsandinstitutionalaffiliations.
ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbytheregisteredcompanySpringerNatureSingaporePteLtd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721,
Singapore
Preface
Thebookyouhaveinyourhandscomesfromaverysimplepurpose:topaytribute
to Charles Darwin on the 150th anniversary of the publication of the book The
descentofman,andselectioninrelationtosex,firstpublishedin1871.Forthatwe
began with a local project: the publication of a monography in the series of the
CatalanSocietyofBiology(SCB),ascribedtotheInstituteofCatalanStudies(IEC)
andhavingtheheadquartersinBarcelona.Evenifexceedingthestandardlengthof
the monographies, it was published as Volume 71 of the Treballs de la Societat
CatalanadeBiologia,inourlanguage,Catalan,attheendof2021.
Forthatwehadadoublepurpose:thestudyofthesocialcontextofDarwinand
his time and the state of the art of the studies on human evolution and sexual
selection, considering all aspects that Darwin examined and those that emerged
laterandnowareimportantdisciplinesinourunderstandingofourownevolution.
Wecouldhavedoneastricterfollow-upofDarwin’swork,followinginparallel
chapters the state of the present knowledge, but we decided to do otherwise to
introducemoreeasilythoseviewsthathedidnotconsider,likeartorgenetics.Thus,
thegeneralstructureisnotthesame,evenifallDarwin’sviewsarediscussedinthe
differentchaptersofthisbook.
ThesetofauthorsaredifferentfromthepredominantAnglo-Saxonmonographies
andeditedbooks.Inthiscaseallareinternationallyrecognizedresearchers butnot
mainly based in the USA. Thus, many authors are working in different places in
Spain,withstrongrepresentationofBarcelonaandValencia.Thisisanaddedvalue
tohaveaviewfromthe“periphery”offirst-classscience.
Atthesametime,weofferedtheUniversityPressoftheUniversityofValencia
(PublicacionsdelaUniversitatdeValència[PUV])thepossibilityofpublishingitin
Spanish.Theyenthusiasticallydidafantasticjobpublishingitinabookformatthat
hasbeenwidelyappreciated.
Ashorttimelater,ProfessorNaruyaSaitou,recognizingthewideinterestofthe
book,suggestedustoofferitspublicationinEnglishtoSpringertranslatedfromthe
Spanish texts kindly provided by PUV. In a strict and smooth process, Springer
offered us the publication in English in its series of Evolutionary Studies. We are
v
vi Preface
very grateful for the acceptance of the proposal and the professionality of the
editorialteam.
Darwin was a genius and paved exquisitely the path of evolutionary anthropol-
ogy.Let’shopethisbookisaworthyheirofhiswealth.
Barcelona,Spain JaumeBertranpetit
Valencia,Spain JuliPeretó
Contents
1 LightWouldBeThrown:HumanEvolution150YearsAfter
Darwin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
JuliPeretóandJaumeBertranpetit
2 TheHistoricalBackgroundtoDarwin’sDescentofMan. . . . . . . . . 17
JanetBrowne
3 WaysofSeeingtheWorld:DarwinandtheFirstVictorian
Generation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
JosepM.Fradera
4 TheProblemofDesignintheDarwinianProposal:AHistorical
Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
JesúsI.Català-Gorgues
5 DarwinUnderSuspicion:TheRepresentationofDarwinism
intheNewspaperABC(1909–1982). .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. 53
MarcosMoralesandMartíDomínguez
6 TheDescentofMan:DarwinandPsychology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
EsterDesfilis
7 HumanEvolution:TheLinguisticEvidence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
JoanaRosselló,LilianaTolchinsky,andCarmeJunyent
8 HumanEvolutioninEurasia:TheFossilsthatDarwin
DidNotKnow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
MaríaMartinón-Torres
9 HumanEvolution:TheGenomicEvidence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
DavidComasandFrancescCalafell
10 TheAdaptationsThatMadeUsHuman:Morphology. . . . . . . . . . 121
DavidM.AlbaandSergioAlmécija
vii
viii Contents
11 TheAdaptationsThatHaveMadeUsHuman:TheGenome. . . . . . 137
ElenaBosch
12 HowDoWeHumansEvolve?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
EudaldCarbonellandPolicarpHortolà
13 ArtasaHumanElement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
InésDomingo
14 SexualSelection:FollowingDarwin’sLegacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
RobertoGarcía-RoaandPauCarazo
15 GeneticandCulturalEvolutionofMateChoice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
MauroSantosandSusanaA.M.Varela
16 HowPastShapesFuture:TheBiologicalFutureofHumankind. . . 201
JaumeBertranpetitandJuliPeretó
Chapter 1
Light Would Be Thrown: Human Evolution
150 Years After Darwin
JuliPeretóandJaumeBertranpetit
Abstract In1871Charles DarwinpublishedThedescent ofman, andselection in
relationtosex,hisfirstmajorcontributiontothenaturalexplanationoftheoriginof
mankind, a subject deliberately omitted from his better known work The origin of
species. Convinced that the time was ripe to address this thorny issue in public,
Darwin produces a book that is, in form and substance, profoundly Victorian. It
reflectshisprejudicesofclass,genderand(imperial)nation,whileatthesametime
layingthefoundationsforourcontemporaryviewofhumanevolutionwithoutany
supernatural intervention. This commemorative collection offers us a broad and
diverseoverviewofcurrentknowledgeabouttheoriginsofhumanity.
Keywords Victorianera·Sexualselection·Humanraces·Scientificimage·
Humanphylogeny
On February 24, 1871, the first edition of The descent of man, and selection in
relationtosex(Descent,fromnowon)wentonsaleand,beforetheendoftheyear,
countingreprints,8000copieswereincirculation.ItwasCharlesDarwin’sfirstbook
to make a financial profit, even though he was already an established and popular
author(Fig.1.1).Despitetheunfavourablereportsabouttheopportunitytopublish
the text, the sense of his publisher John Murray was not wrong: a strictly natural
explanationoftheoriginofhumanscouldattracttheattentionnotonlyofspecialists
butalsoofthegeneralpublic.Inthesameyearofpublication,translationsappeared
inDutch, French, German, RussianandItalian,andshortly afterwards inSwedish,
PolishandDanish.
J.Peretó(*)
DepartamentdeBioquímicaiBiologiaMolecular,InstitutdeBiologiaIntegrativadeSistemes
I2SysBio(UniversitatdeValència-CSIC),UniversitatdeValència,Valencia,Spain
e-mail:[email protected]
J.Bertranpetit
DepartmentofMedicineandLifeSciences(MELIS),InstitutdeBiologiaEvolutivaIBE
(UniversitatPompeuFabra-CSIC),UniversitatPompeuFabra,Barcelona,Spain
e-mail:[email protected]
©TheAuthor(s),underexclusivelicensetoSpringerNatureSingaporePteLtd.2022 1
J.Bertranpetit,J.Peretó(eds.),IlluminatingHumanEvolution:150Yearsafter
Darwin,EvolutionaryStudies,https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3246-5_1