Thinking Big: How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind

246 Pages·2014·13.06 MB·English

by  Robin Dunbar

About the Author
The three authors are co-directors of the research project 'Lucy to Language –
the Archaeology of the Social Brain’.
Robin Dunbar is head of the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research
Group at the University of Oxford. He has published numerous books including
Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language (2004) and formulated
‘Dunbar’s number’, which suggests humans are limited to stable social groups of
around 150 people Clive Gamble is Professor of Archaeology at the University
of Southampton. His work involves the study of our earliest ancestors and in
particular the timing of global colonization. His publications include
Archaeology: The Basics (2007).
John Gowlett is Professor of Archaeology at Liverpool University. He
specializes in evolutionary archaeology and anthropology, particularly tracing
the preconditions and origins of human conceptualizing abilities. His
publications include Ascent to Civilization (1992).
Other titles of interest published by
Thames & Hudson include: The Complete World of Human Evolution The
Human Past:
World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies Deciphering Ancient
Minds:
The Mystery of San Bushman Rock Art
Inside the Neolithic Mind:
Consciousness, Cosmos and the Realm of the Gods The Mind in the Cave:
Consciousness and the Origins of Art
The Neanderthals Rediscovered:
How Modern Science is Rewriting their Story The Splendour of Lascaux:
Rediscovering the Greatest Treasure of Prehistoric Art
See our websites
www.thamesandhudson.com
www.thamesandhudsonusa.com
Preface
1
Psychology meets archaeology
2
What it means to be social
3
Ancient social lives
4
Ancestors with small brains
5
Building the human niche: three crucial skills
6
Ancestors with large brains
7
Living in big societies
Selected Reading
Sources of Illustrations
Index
Copyright
Thinking big is a very human thing to do. We have remarkable imaginations that
take us back into the past and out into the future. We feast on films and literature
and ruminate on the creativity of the human mind. We take innovations in social
networking in our stride as we adapt to living in mega-cities. We work in global
economies and access what we know of these big worlds from 24/7 news. But,
for all this big thinking, we remain in some essentials small-minded. We have a
cognition that equips each of us to deal best with small numbers of other people.
While the size of our populations has grown exponentially, we remain, at core,
the product of the small social worlds of our evolutionary history.
What we set out to explore in this book is the story of how our big-thinking
social brain evolved. We do this by looking at ourselves and our closest living
relatives – the apes and monkeys – as well as at the skulls and artifacts of our
fossil ancestors. There is a link between the two and that is the size of the brain
and the size of the small social communities they live in. We will examine the
idea that it was our social lives that drove the growth of our most distinctive
feature: the human brain.
Our ability to think big is part of our evolutionary story. It was with the desire
to know more about this vital ingredient of being human that we undertook a
seven-year project (2003–2010) funded by the British Academy as a celebration
of its centenary. We called the project Lucy to Language: The Archaeology of
the Social Brain and in the pages that follow you will learn much about Lucy’s
journey from an ancestor with a small brain to a global species with an open
mind.
The Lucy project was collaborative and interdisciplinary. Its rationale was
underpinned by Sir Adam Roberts, President of the British Academy, when he
wrote about the public value of the humanities and social sciences as follows:
‘The humanities explore what it means to be human: the words, ideas, narratives
and the art and artifacts that help us make sense of our lives and the world we
live in; how we have created it, and are created by it. The social sciences seek to
explore, through observation and reflection, the processes that govern the
behaviour of individuals and groups. Together, they help us to understand
ourselves, our society and our place in the world.’ This sums up the intent of our
Lucy project – to explore the past and the present to provide a fuller account of
where we have come from and why we act the way we do.
Our greatest thanks go to the British Academy and their decision to fund a
project that drew together the humanities and the social sciences. We were also
extremely fortunate in having a Steering Committee of Garry Runciman, Wendy
James and Ken Emond, who read all our reports, attended all our conferences
and through their enthusiastic support and advice added immeasurably to the
success of the research undertaken. We would also like to thank David
Phillipson FBA for all his help in furthering our research in Africa.
We benefited throughout from the encouragement and wise advice of the
project’s Honorary Fellows: Leslie Aiello, Holly Arrow, Filippo Aureli, Larry
Barham, Alan Barnard, Robin Crompton, William Davies, Bob Layton, Yvonne
Marshall, John McNabb, Jessica Pearson, Susanne Shultz, Anthony Sinclair,
James Steele, Mark van Vugt, Anna Wallette, Victoria Winton and Sonia
Zakrzewski.
One of our goals was to build the next generation of researchers in human
evolution to work across the humanities and social sciences. We were very
fortunate in having such a talented group of postdocs and postgrads, many of
whom are now embedded in the universities of the world. Our postdoctoral
research fellows were Quentin Atkinson, Max Burton, Margaret Clegg, Fiona
Coward, Oliver Curry, Matt Grove, Jane Hallos, Mandy Korstjens, Julia
Lehmann, Stephen Lycett, Anna Machin, Sam Roberts and Natalie Uomini; our
research assistants were Anna Frangou and Peter Morgan; and our postgraduate
students were Katherine Andrews, Isabel Behncke, Caroline Bettridge, Peter
Bond, Vicky Brant, Lisa Cashmore, James Cole, Richard Davies, Hannah Fluck,
Babis Garefalakis, Iris Glaesslein, Charlie Hardy, Wendy Iredale, Minna Lyons,
Marc Mehu, Dora Moutsiou, Emma Nelson, Adam Newton, Kit Opie, Ellie
Pearce, Phil Purslow, Yvan Russell and Andy Shuttleworth. In relation to
African research and fire studies John Gowlett also thanks especially Stephen
Rucina, Isaya Onjala, Sally Hoare, Andy Herries, James Brink, Maura Butler,
Laura Basell, National Museums of Kenya and NCST Kenya; also Nick
Debenham, Richard Preece, David Bridgland, Simon Lewis, Simon Parfitt, Jack
Harris, Richard Wrangham and Naama Goren-Inbar.
Funding for the fellowships and studentships came principally from the
British Academy Centenary Project, and our meetings, fieldwork and study leave
were made possible by grants administered under the British Academy’s
Research Professorship, Small Grants, Conference and Exchange funding
programmes. We were also very grateful for additional funding from the Arts
and Humanities Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council,
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Natural Environment
Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, the Boise Fund and the EU-FP6 and
FP7 programmes. We also received generous support from our host institutions,
Oxford University, Liverpool University, Royal Holloway and Southampton
University.
Any long-running project is marked by the natural rhythms of life. Five
babies were born and none of them are called Lucy! We are happy to say their
social brains are developing nicely.
Clive Gamble
John Gowlett
Robin Dunbar
The history of human evolution is an iconic story that never ceases to mesmerize
and enthral. Buried in our past is one of the triumphs of evolution, the story of
how a common-or-garden African ape began to change both its body form and
the way it lived its life – and how in doing so, it eventually became the dominant
species on earth. It is only within the last century that we have really come to
appreciate the grandeur of this story and the moments of uncertainty and near-
extinction that threatened it.