High Altitude Primates, Extreme Primates, and Anthropological Primatology: Or, There is More to Human Evolution than Tool Use, Culture, or African Apes

2013 ◽  
pp. 325-350
Author(s):  
Ken Sayers
Keyword(s):  
High Altitude ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
African Apes

Human Evolution at High Altitude

High Altitude ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 357-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia M. Beall
Keyword(s):  
High Altitude ◽  
Human Evolution

scholarly journals Stone tools, language and the brain in human evolution

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1585) ◽  
pp. 75-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dietrich Stout ◽  
Thierry Chaminade
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Action Understanding ◽  
Language Origins ◽  
Neural Bases ◽  
The Brain

Long-standing speculations and more recent hypotheses propose a variety of possible evolutionary connections between language, gesture and tool use. These arguments have received important new support from neuroscientific research on praxis, observational action understanding and vocal language demonstrating substantial functional/anatomical overlap between these behaviours. However, valid reasons for scepticism remain as well as substantial differences in detail between alternative evolutionary hypotheses. Here, we review the current status of alternative ‘gestural’ and ‘technological’ hypotheses of language origins, drawing on current evidence of the neural bases of speech and tool use generally, and on recent studies of the neural correlates of Palaeolithic technology specifically.

scholarly journals Cognition, Human Evolution and the possibilities for an Ethics of Warfare and Peace

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Barreiros ◽  
Daniel Ribera Vainfas
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Ethical Behavior ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
African Apes ◽  
Hard Power

African apes live in large stable social groups with an increased potential for conflict between individual agendas; a reasonable volume of evidence has suggested an instinctive and ethological basis for their intrasocial ethical behavior. Would there be some innate and ethological behavioral basis for ethics in human intersocietal relations, whether in war (providing the limits to the exercise of hard power), or in peace (establishing standards for preservation of intersocietal non-hostility)? As a hypothesis, we suggest that human exclusivity in the exercise of the ethics of warfare and peace is a product of the human transdominial cognition, capable of recombining and re-signifying innate behavioral algorithms through culture, applying them to absolutely innovative functions.

scholarly journals Cognition, Human Evolution and the possibilities for an Ethics of Warfare and Peace

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Barreiros ◽  
Daniel Ribera Vainfas
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Ethical Behavior ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
African Apes ◽  
Hard Power

African apes live in large stable social groups with an increased potential for conflict between individual agendas; a reasonable volume of evidence has suggested an instinctive and ethological basis for their intrasocial ethical behavior. Would there be some innate and ethological behavioral basis for ethics in human intersocietal relations, whether in war (providing the limits to the exercise of hard power), or in peace (establishing standards for preservation of intersocietal non-hostility)? As a hypothesis, we suggest that human exclusivity in the exercise of the ethics of warfare and peace is a product of the human transdominial cognition, capable of recombining and re-signifying innate behavioral algorithms through culture, applying them to absolutely innovative functions.

Throwing, Swimming, and Rowing

Sport ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Schulkin
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Visual System ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Shoulder Flexibility ◽  
And Control

Continues the thread of our anchoring to objects and others in the organization of action and in sport in particular; social organization, human development, pedagogy, and tool use. I start with the visual system, so central to human evolution and our practice of most sports. I will then continue with problem solving and sport, throwing, swimming and rowing; biogical spreading through sports and sports impacting physical and mental capabilities. Human evolutionary history shows that throwing is a feature of our species and that to throw well was to survive. The capacity to store energy and release it with control, rapidity, and flexibility probably emerged with Homo erectus about 2 million years ago, along with greater flexibility of the torso; the infusion of energy vital for hunting and running emerged with shoulder flexibility and control over the elbow and wrist.

A complete theory of human evolution of intelligence must consider stage changes

2002 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lamport Commons ◽  
Patrice Marie Miller
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Complete Theory ◽  
Hierarchical Complexity

We show 13 stages of the development of tool-use and tool making during different eras in the evolution of Homo sapiens. We used the NeoPiagetian Model of Hierarchical Complexity rather than Piaget's. We distinguished the use of existing methods imitated or learned from others, from doing such a task on one's own.

scholarly journals Complex Tasks Force Hand Laterality and Technological Behaviour in Naturalistically Housed Chimpanzees: Inferences in Hominin Evolution

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Mosquera ◽  
N. Geribàs ◽  
A. Bargalló ◽  
M. Llorente ◽  
D. Riba
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Task Complexity ◽  
Complex Behaviour ◽  
Hominin Evolution ◽  
Hand Laterality ◽  
Complementary Role ◽  
Interesting Connection ◽  
The Difference ◽  
And Task

Clear hand laterality patterns in humans are widely accepted. However, humans only elicit a significant hand laterality pattern when performing complementary role differentiation (CRD) tasks. Meanwhile, hand laterality in chimpanzees is weaker and controversial. Here we have reevaluated our results on hand laterality in chimpanzees housed in naturalistic environments at Fundació Mona (Spain) and Chimfunshi Wild Orphanage (Zambia). Our results show that the difference between hand laterality in humans and chimpanzees is not as great as once thought. Furthermore, we found a link between hand laterality and task complexity and also an even more interesting connection: CRD tasks elicited not only the hand laterality but also the use of tools. This paper aims to turn attention to the importance of this threefold connection in human evolution: the link between CRD tasks, hand laterality, and tool use, which has important evolutionary implications that may explain the development of complex behaviour in early hominins.

scholarly journals Environmental variability supports chimpanzee behavioural diversity

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ammie K. Kalan ◽  
Lars Kulik ◽  
Mimi Arandjelovic ◽  
Christophe Boesch ◽  
Fabian Haas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Pan Troglodytes ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
Wild Chimpanzee ◽  
Behavioural Flexibility ◽  
Evolutionary Force ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
Behavioural Diversity

Abstract Large brains and behavioural innovation are positively correlated, species-specific traits, associated with the behavioural flexibility animals need for adapting to seasonal and unpredictable habitats. Similar ecological challenges would have been important drivers throughout human evolution. However, studies examining the influence of environmental variability on within-species behavioural diversity are lacking despite the critical assumption that population diversification precedes genetic divergence and speciation. Here, using a dataset of 144 wild chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) communities, we show that chimpanzees exhibit greater behavioural diversity in environments with more variability — in both recent and historical timescales. Notably, distance from Pleistocene forest refugia is associated with the presence of a larger number of behavioural traits, including both tool and non-tool use behaviours. Since more than half of the behaviours investigated are also likely to be cultural, we suggest that environmental variability was a critical evolutionary force promoting the behavioural, as well as cultural diversification of great apes.

scholarly journals Tools and food on heat lamps: pyrocognitive sparks in New Caledonian crows?

Behaviour ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Ivo Jacobs ◽  
Auguste M.P. von Bayern ◽  
Mathias Osvath
Keyword(s):  
Heat Source ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Heat Sources ◽  
Time Budgets ◽  
Fire Use ◽  
Early Humans ◽  
New Caledonian Crows ◽  
Brain Expansion ◽  
Corvus Moneduloides

Abstract Fire has substantially altered the course of human evolution. Cooking kindled brain expansion through improved energy and time budgets. However, little is known about the origins of fire use and its cognitive underpinnings (pyrocognition). Debates on how hominins innovated cooking focus on archaeological findings, but should also be informed by the response of animals towards heat sources. Here, we report six observations on two captive New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) contacting heat lamps with tools or placing raw food on them. The tools became singed or melted and the food had browned (and was removed). These results suggest that New Caledonian crows can use tools to investigate hot objects, which extends earlier findings that they use tools to examine potential hazards (pericular tool use), and place food on a heat source as play or exploration. Further research on animals will provide novel insights into the pyrocognitive origins of early humans.

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