Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution

The Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution explores the origins of our characteristically human abilities - our ability to speak, create images, play music, and read and write. The book investigates how symbolization evolved in human evolution and how symbolism is expressed across the various areas of human life.

List of contents

• 1: Nathalie Gontier, Andy Lock, Chris Sinha: Introduction: Current Topics and Debates in Human Symbolic Evolution


• PART 1: Studying symbolism: Epistemological considerations


• 2: Nathalie Gontier: The evolution of the biological sciences


• 3: Nathalie Gontier: The evolution of the symbolic sciences


• 4: Ian Tattersall: A timeline for the acquisition of symbolic cognition in the human lineage


• 5: Ana Majkic: Behavioral modernity, evolutionary synergies, and the symbolic species


• 6: Michael A. Arbib: On the aboutness of language and the evolution of the construction-ready brain


• 7: Antonio Benítez-Burraco and Dan Dediu: The evolution of language and speech: What we know from genetics


• PART 2: Pathways to symbolization: Psychological considerations


• 8: Francesco Suman: The evolution of the human life course: The role of culturally driven plasticity


• 9: Chris Sinha: Artefacts, symbols, and the socio-cultural dynamics of niche construction


• 10: Peter Gärdenfors and Anders Högberg: Evolution of intentional teaching


• 11: Nick J. Enfield and Jack Sidnell: Intersubjectivity is activity plus accountability


• 12: Camilla Power, Ian Watts, and Chris Knight: The symbolic revolution: A sexual conflict model


• 13: Maria Botero: Primate parents: Theories, bias, and change in the study of the evolution of parenting


• PART 3: Symbolic lifeways: Anthropological considerations


• 14: Elisabeth V. Culley and Iain Davidson: Art, sign, and representation


• 15: Antonis Iliopoulos and Lambros Malafouris: Symbols and material signs in the debate on human origins


• 16: April Nowell and Amanda Cooke: Culturing the Paleolithic body: Archaeological signatures of adornment and body modification


• 17: Rupert Till: The evolution of music: The development of sonic representation and meaning


• 18: Fabio Silva, Fernando Pimenta, and Luís Tirapicos: Symbolism and archeoastronomy in prehistory


• 19: Roslyn M. Frank: Exploring the evolutionary pathways from number sense to numeracy


• PART 4: Grounding symbolism: Ethological considerations


• 20: Guenther Witzany: How viruses made us human


• 21: Ulrike Griebel and D. Kimbrough Oller: Animal signals and symbolism


• 22: Augusta Gaspar: Emotion expression, empathic reception, and prosocial behavior: Are they linked in evolution?


• 23: David A. Leavens and Kim A. Bard: Primate cognition in captivity


• 24: Heidi Lyn: Kanzi or can't he? Animal language projects


• 25: Lana M. Ruck and Natalie T. Uomini: Artifact, praxis, tool, and symbol


• PART 5: From protolanguage to language: Linguistic considerations


• 26: Francesco Ferretti: The narrative origins of language


• 27: Slawomir Wacewicz and Przemyslaw Zywiczynski: Pantomimic conceptions of language origins


• 28: Tania Kuteva and Bernd Heine: On the structure of early language: Analytic vs holistic language processing and grammaticalization


• 29: Susan Goldin-Meadow: Gesture is an intrinsic part of modern-day human communication and may always have been so


• 30: Ulf Liszkowski and Johanna Rüther: Ontogenetic origins of infant pointing


• 31: Gerd Carling, Chundra Cathcart, and Erich Round: Reconstructing the origins of language families and variation


• PART 6: Expanding symbolism: Socio-technological considerations


• 32: Todd Oakley: The origins of money and its role in modernity


• 33: Prem Poddar: Force fields of the modern: the symbolic contestation of power


• 34: Alex de Voogt: The evolution of writing systems: An introduction


• 35: Rukmini Bhaya Nair: Archewriting: The Symbolic Evolution of Script and Narrative


• 36: Sverker Johansson and Ylva Lindberg: Cybercultures


• 37: Francis Heylighen: Transcending the rational symbol system: How information and communication technology integrates science, art, philosophy, and spirituality into a global brain


• 38: Natasha Vita-More: 1. Technoscience, transhumanism, and telos


• 39: Chris Sinha: Metaphor, myth, and symbol in the grain of time

About the author

Nathalie Gontier has a background in philosophy of science and comparative anthropology. Her research investigates how evolutionary theories develop in biology, how they are applied to study symbolic (sociocultural and linguistic) evolution, and how they are depicted in diagrams. She is the founding director of the Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Lab and she currently holds a research position at the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon. Her work has been sponsored, amongst others, by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, the European Marie Curie actions, the American Museum of Natural History, and the John Templeton Foundation.

Andy Lock was Professor Emeritus at the School of Psychology at Massey University, New Zealand. With a background in zoology and developmental psychology, his early research focused on the development of communication and language in infancy and early childhood. He was a pioneering researcher in language evolution and human symbolic evolution, and was widely recognised for his work in a broad range of fields including indigenous psychologies, social constructionism and therapeutic practice. He was also known for his innovative and early engagement with online learning and teaching, through his establishment in the 1990s of The Virtual Faculty.

Chris Sinha gained his BA in developmental psychology at the University of Sussex, and his doctorate (cum laude) at the University of Utrecht. His research is in the relations between language, cognition and culture in human development and evolution. Methodologically, his research seeks to integrate cognitive linguistic with socio-cultural approaches to language and communication in the construction of a biocultural approach to human symbolic evolution. He is experienced in field experimental and observational methods in human communication and human development. He has published in disciplines including anthropology, linguistics, education, evolutionary biology, connection science, as well as developmental and cultural psychology.

Summary

The biological and neurological capacity to symbolize, and the products of behavioral, cognitive, sociocultural, linguistic, and technological uses of symbols (symbolism), are fundamental to every aspect of human life. The Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution explores the origins of our characteristically human abilities - our ability to speak, create images, play music, and read and write. The book investigates how symbolization evolved in human evolution and how symbolism is expressed across the various areas of human life. The field is intrinsically interdisciplinary - considering findings from fossil studies, scientific research from primatology, developmental psychology, and of course linguistics.

Written by world leading experts, thirty-eight topical chapters are grouped into six thematic parts that respectively focus on epistemological, psychological, anthropological, ethological, linguistic, and social-technological aspects of human symbolic evolution. The handbook presents an in-depth but comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the of the state of the art in the science of human symbolic evolution. This work will be of interest to academics and students active in all fields contributing to the study of human evolution.

Product details

• Authors: Dr Nathalie (University of Lisbon) Gontier, Dr Nathalie (University of Lisbon) Lock Gontier, Nathalie Gontier, Andy Lock, Prof Andy (Department of Psychology Lock, Chris Sinha, Prof Chris (School of Politics Sinha
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 03.08.2023
• EAN: 9780198813781
• ISBN: 978-0-19-881378-1
• No. of pages: 1184
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Psychology, esoterics, spirituality, anthroposophy > Psychology: general, reference works; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Miscellaneous; PSYCHOLOGY / Social Psychology, Anthropology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Archaeology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Physical, Archaeology, Social, group or collective psychology, Early Man, Evolutionary anthropology / Human evolution