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Books Received
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THE EVOLUTION OF THOUGHT Evolutionary Origins of Great Ape Intelligence

Edited by Anne E. Russon and David R. Begun
Cambridge University Press, 2004

FROM THE BACK COVER
Research on the evolution of higher intelligence rarely combines data from 
fields as diverse as paleontology and psychology. In this volume we seek to 
do just that, synthesizing the approaches of hominoid cognition, 
psychology, language studies, ecology, evolution, paleoecology, and 
systematics towards an understanding of great ape intelligence. Leading 
scholars from all these fields have been asked to evaluate the manner in 
which each of their topics of research informs our understanding of the 
evolution of intelligence in great apes and humans. The ideas thus 
assembled represent the most comprehensive survey to date of the various 
causes and consequences of cognitive evolution in great apes. The Evolution 
of Thought will therefore be an essential reference for graduate students 
and researchers in evolutionary psychology, paleoanthropology, and primatology.

ANNE E. RUSSON is a professor of psychology at Glendon College of York 
University in Toronto. Since 1989 she has been studying intelligence and 
learning in ex-captive orangutans released to free forest life in central 
and eastern Indonesian Borneo.

DAVID R. BEGUN is a professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto. 
He is a leading researcher in Miocene hominoid paleobiology His current 
research interests center on the biogeography of great ape and human 
origins and the relations between Miocene hominoids and the earliest humans.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of contributors    vii
Preface    ix

1. Evolutionary reconstructions of great ape intelligence    1
ANNE E. RUSSON

2. Enhanced cognitive capacity as a contingent fact of
hominid phylogeny    15
DAVID R. BEGUN

PART I. COGNITION IN LIVING GREAT APES
Introduction 29
ANNE E. RUSSON

3. The manual skills and cognition that lie behind hominid tool use    31
RICHARD W. BYRNE

4. The cognitive complexity of social organization and socialization
in wild baboons and chimpanzees: guided participation, socializing 
interactions,
and event representation    45
SUE TAYLOR PARKER

5. Gestural communication in the great apes    61
JOANNA BLAKE

6. Great ape cognitive systems    76
ANNE E. RUSSON

PART II. MODERN GREAT APE ADAPTATION
Introduction    101
ANNE E. RUSSON

7. What's in a brain? The question of a distinctive
brain anatomy in great apes    105
CAROL E. MacLEOD

8. Life histories and the evolution of large brain size in great apes    122
CAROLINE ROSS

9. Evolution of complex feeding techniques in primates: is this the origin of
great ape intelligence?    140
GEN YAMAKOSHI

10. The special demands of great ape locomotion and posture    172
KEVIN D. HUNT

11. Great ape social systems    190
CAREL P. VAN SCHAIK, SIGNE PREUSCHOFT, AND DAVID P. WATTS

12. Diet and foraging of the great apes: ecological constraints on their 
social organizations and implications for their divergence    210
JUICHI YAMAGIWA

PART III. FOSSIL GREAT APE ADAPTATIONS
Introduction 235
DAVID R. BEGUN

13. Paleoenvironments and the evolution of adaptability in great apes    237
RICHARD POTTS

14. Cranial evidence of the evolution of intelligence in fossil apes    260
DAVID R. BEGUN AND LASZLO KORDOS

15. Life history and cognitive evolution in the apes    280
JAY KELLEY

16. Fossil hominoid diets, extractive foraging, and the origins of
great ape intelligence    298
MICHELLE SINGLETON

17. Paleontology, terrestriality, and the intelligence of great apes    320
DANIEL L. GEBO

18. Body size and intelligence in hominoid evolution    335
CAROL V. WARD, MARK FLINN, AND DAVID R. BEGUN

PART IV. INTEGRATION
19. Evolutionary origins of great ape intelligence:
an integrated view    353
ANNE E. RUSSON AND DAVID R. BEGUN

Author index    369
Species index    373
Subject index    375

*****************************************************
ISBN: 0521783356 (hardcover) $110.00 USD

WHERE TO ORDER:
Cambridge University Press
100 Brook Hill Drive
West Nyack, NY 10994-2133

General phone: (845) 353-7500
General fax: (845) 353-4141

Direct link to catalog entry:
http://us.cambridge.org/titles/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521783356


Posted Date: 5/26/04

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