On the Origin of Societies by Natural SelectionKinship, religion, and economy were not "natural" to humans, nor to species of apes that had to survive on the African savanna. Society from its very beginnings involved an uneasy necessity that often stood in conflict with humans' ape ancestry; these tensions only grew along with later, more complex-eventually colossal-sociocultural systems. The ape in us was not extinguished, nor obviated, by culture; indeed, our ancestry continues to place pressures on individuals and their sociocultural creations. Not just an exercise in history, this pathbreaking book dispels many myths about the beginning of society to gain new understandings of the many pressures on societies today. |
Contents
| 1 | |
2 The Weakness of Weak Ties | 28 |
In Search of the Primal Horde | 58 |
A New Basis of Primate Solidarity | 81 |
5 The Emergence of Culture | 110 |
Hunting and Gathering | 129 |
7 The Rise of Horticulture | 168 |
8 Agrarian Societies | 207 |
9 The Rise of Industrial and PostIndustrial Societies | 249 |
Evolved Apes Living in Sociocultural Cages | 301 |
| 321 | |
| 353 | |
Other editions - View all
On the Origin of Societies by Natural Selection Jonathan H. Turner,Alexandra Maryanski Limited preview - 2015 |
On the Origin of Societies by Natural Selection Jonathan H. Turner,Alexandra Maryanski No preview available - 2008 |
Common terms and phrases
actors adult agrarian societies apes and humans areas band bases of power bonobo brain bureaucracies cage capacity capital chimpanzees coercive common chimpanzee complex corporate units courts create cult structures culture differentiation distribution division of labor early hominids economic surplus elites emerged Émile Durkheim enhanced evolved ape foraging forces forest fossil gorillas habitat hierarchy hominids Homo Homo erectus horde horticultural horticultural societies Human Evolution human societies hunter-gatherers hunting and gathering hunting-and-gathering incest increase individuals industrial and post-industrial inequality institutional domains kinship language larger last common ancestor males and females mammals markets Maryanski Miocene mobility natural selection neocortex neuroanatomy niches nuclear family offspring Old World monkeys orangutans organization patterns polity population post-industrial societies prestige primate production prosimians puberty religion religious rituals savanna selection pressures sexual social bonds social structure sociocultural solidarity species speech supernatural symbols tion totems traits Turner University Press weak-tie York