Primate Info Net

[What's New] [Search] [IDP] [WDP] [Meetings] [AV] [Primate-Jobs] [Careers] [PrimateLit] [AskPrimate] [Index]

Books Received
Primate-Science / PrimateLit


Biology, Brains, and Behavior: The Evolution of Human Development

Edited by Sue Taylor Parker, Jonas Langer, and Michael L. McKinney

School of American Research Press
Santa Fe

James Currey
Oxford

2000

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations   ix
List of Tables   xii
Acknowledgments   xiii

1.  Comparative Developmental Evolutionary Biology, Anthropology, and 
Psychology: Convergences in the Study of Human Behavioral 
Ontogeny                                1
         Sue Taylor Parker

2. Evolving Behavioral Complexity by Extending 
Development                      25
         Michael L. McKinney

3. Heterochrony in Brain Evolution: Cellular versus Morphological 
Analyses      41
         Terrence W. Deacon

4. The Ontogeny and Phylogeny of Language: A Neural Network Perspective 89
         Elizabeth Bates and Jeffrey Elman

5.  The Developmental Timing of Primate Play: A Neural Selection 
Model          131
         Lynn A. Fairbanks

6. Evolutionary Development, Life Histories, and Brain Size: Finding 
Connections via a Multivariate 
Method                                                              159
         John Gittleman, H.-K Luh, C.G. Anderson, and S. E. Cates

7. Current Issues in the Investigation of Evolution by Heterochrony, with 
Emphasis on the Debate over Human 
Neoteny                                                             181
         Brian Shea

8. The Heterochronic Evolution of Primate Cognitive Development         215
         Jonas Langer

9. Cultural Apprenticeship and Culture Change: Tool Learning and Imitation 
in Chimpanzees and Humans 237
         Patricia Greenfield, Ashley Maynard, Christopher Boehm, and Emily 
Yut Schmidtling

10. Homo erectus Infancy and Childhood: The Turning Point in the Evolution 
of Behavioral Development in 
Hominids                                                        279
         Sue Taylor Parker

References   319
Index   371

  FROM BACK COVER:

As the twenty-first century dawns, a new field of evolutionary 
developmental biology is emerging: the comparative study of species-typical 
life histories and developmental courses.  This intrinsically 
cross-disciplinary approach to primate evolution is well represented by the 
contributors to the ten chapters in this book, who come from the fields of 
biological anthropology, evolutionary biology, developmental psychology, 
and cognitive neuroscience.

The authors of Biology, Brains, and Behavior share a belief that 
comparative studies of brain development in human and nonhuman primates 
hold the key to understanding the evolution of primates' behavioral 
ontogeny.  Using theoretical models such as heterochrony, allometry, life 
history theory, cladistics, and Piagetian cognitive stage development, they 
examine questions fundamental to our understanding of the human 
species:  Are humans underdeveloped or overdeveloped apes?  What is the 
role of the brain in life history?  How did brain development change during 
hominid evolution?  Their answers offer a challenging new look at the ways 
in which cognition, language, and behavior develop from primates' earliest 
embryonic stages into adulthood.

"Evolutionary developmental biology is an important, burgeoning field that 
promises to illuminate many features of the human condition and 
career.  The editors are to be commended for assembling this benchmark 
publication."
-Russell H. Tuttle, The University of Chicago


CONTRIBUTORS

C. G. Anderson
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Elizabeth Bates
Center for Research in Cognitive Development
University of California, San Diego

Christopher Boehm
Department of Anthropology, Jane Goodall Research Center
University of Southern California

S. E. Cates
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Terrence W. Deacon
Department of Anthropology, Boston University

Jeffrey Elman
Department of Cognitive Sciences
University of California, San Diego

  Lynn A. Fairbanks
Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
Neuropsychiatric Institute
University of California, Los Angeles

John Gittleman
Department of Biology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville

Patricia Greenfield
Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles

Jonas Langer
Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley

H.-K Luh
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Ashley Maynard
Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles

Michael L. McKnney
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Sue Taylor Parker
Department of Anthropology, Sonoma State University

Emily Yut Schmidtling
Los Angeles, California

Brian Shea
Department of Cell and Molecular Biology
Northwestern University


WHERE TO ORDER:

SAR Press
P.O. Box 2188
Santa Fe, NM
87504-2188
Phone: 888-390-6070
Fax:  505-954-7241
Email: bkorders@sarsf.org
Web site: www.sarweb.org

Cost:  Cloth $60  (ISBN: 0933452632)
         Paper $24.95  (ISBN: 0933452640)

URL: http://www.primate.wisc.edu/pin/review/biobrainsbehav.html
Page last modified: June 28, 2001
Maintained by the WRPRC Library

Return to Review Copies Received
Return to PIN Home Page