To see accurate pricing, please choose your delivery country.
 
 
United States
£ GBP
All Shops

British Wildlife

8 issues per year 84 pages per issue Subscription only

British Wildlife is the leading natural history magazine in the UK, providing essential reading for both enthusiast and professional naturalists and wildlife conservationists. Published eight times a year, British Wildlife bridges the gap between popular writing and scientific literature through a combination of long-form articles, regular columns and reports, book reviews and letters.

Subscriptions from £33 per year

Conservation Land Management

4 issues per year 44 pages per issue Subscription only

Conservation Land Management (CLM) is a quarterly magazine that is widely regarded as essential reading for all who are involved in land management for nature conservation, across the British Isles. CLM includes long-form articles, events listings, publication reviews, new product information and updates, reports of conferences and letters.

Subscriptions from £26 per year
Academic & Professional Books  Mammals  Primates

Tree of Origin What Primate Behaviour Can Tell Us About Human Social Evolution

By: Frans BM de Waal(Editor)
311 pages, b/w photos, illustrations, tables
Tree of Origin
Click to have a closer look
Select version
  • Tree of Origin ISBN: 9780674010048 Paperback Nov 2002 Not in stock: Usually dispatched within 6 days
    £30.95
    #249060
  • Tree of Origin ISBN: 9780674004603 Hardback May 2001 Out of Print #119443
Selected version: £30.95
About this book Contents Customer reviews Biography Related titles

About this book

How did we become the linguistic, cultured, and hugely successful apes that we are? Our closest relatives – the other mentally complex and socially skilled primates – offer tantalizing clues. In Tree of Origin nine of the world's top primate experts read these clues and compose the most extensive picture to date of what the behavior of monkeys and apes can tell us about our own evolution as a species.

It has been nearly fifteen years since a single volume addressed the issue of human evolution from a primate perspective, and in that time we have witnessed explosive growth in research on the subject. Tree of Origin gives us the latest news about bonobos, the "make love not war" apes who behave so dramatically unlike chimpanzees. We learn about the tool traditions and social customs that set each ape community apart. We see how DNA analysis is revolutionizing our understanding of paternity, intergroup migration, and reproductive success. And we confront intriguing discoveries about primate hunting behavior, politics, cognition, diet, and the evolution of language and intelligence that challenge claims of human uniqueness in new and subtle ways.

Tree of Origin provides the clearest glimpse yet of the apelike ancestor who left the forest and began the long journey toward modern humanity.

Contents

Introduction [Frans B. M. de Waal]
1. Of Genes and Apes: Chimpanzee Social Organization and Reproduction [Anne E. Pusey]
2. Apes from Venus: Bonobos and Human Social Evolution [Frans B. M. de Waal]
3. Beyond the Apes: Reasons to Consider the Entire Primate Order [Karen B. Strier]
4. The Ape’s Gift: Meat-eating, Meat-sharing, and Human Evolution [Craig S. Stanford]
5. Out of the Pan, into the Fire: How Our Ancestors’ Evolution Depended on What They Ate [Richard W. Wrangham]
6. Social and Technical Forms of Primate Intelligence [Richard W. Byrne]
7. Brains on Two Legs: Group Size and the Evolution of Intelligence [Robin I. M. Dunbar]
8. From Primate Communication to Human Language [Charles T. Snowdon]
9. The Nature of Culture: Prospects and Pitfalls of Cultural Primatology [William C. McGrew]
Notes

 

Customer Reviews

Biography

Frans B.M. De Waal is C. H. Candler Professor of Primate Behavior in the Psychology Department, and Director of Living Links, part of the Yerkes Primate Center, Emory University. His many books include Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals and Peacemaking among Primates.

By: Frans BM de Waal(Editor)
311 pages, b/w photos, illustrations, tables
Media reviews

"[An] enlightening discussion of how scientists' ideas about human forebears have been shaped – and perhaps led astray – by extrapolations from intensive study of a few primates. Whether you are interested in human origins or in how other animals live their lives, [this book] is a superb synthesis of current thinking and research about our closest nonhuman relatives."
– Susan Okie, The Washington Post Book World

"A fascinating bunch of essays [...] They re-examine human social evolution from the perspective of naturalistic observations of non-human primates, and then extrapolate to humans."
– Laura Spinney, New Scientist

"Are we so separate from our nearest relatives that studying apes' behavior has nothing to teach us about ourselves? Or does watching how apes interact socially give us clues about our own evolution? The authors come down solidly on the side of the applicability of primate studies to the study of humans. Growing from a 1997 conference on human evolution, this selection of nine essays by working primatologists include speculations about the origins of human social evolution from the perspective of their studies on other primates [...] All of the essays are accessible to the general reader."
Booklist

"The last few decades have seen enormous progress in the study of primate behavior. Nine of the world's leading experts team up to tell us what it all means, throwing new light on human evolution."
– Jane Goodall

"In Tree of Origin, primatologists speak out about the evolution of human behavior. After decades of hard work – all those hours in the sun, all those days of stomping though forests, all those years of watching monkeys and apes – they have come to provocative conclusions about how the behavior of our closest relatives informs our own lives. This book is the bridge between our past and our present."
– Meredith Small, author of Kids: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Raise Our Children

"Human behavior today is so unfathomable and complex that it's hard to relate it to influences from the remote past. But if you want a source that cogently discusses human intelligence in the context of the behavior of other primates, Tree of Origin is the place to turn."
– Ian Tattersall, Curator, American Museum of Natural History, author of Becoming Human

Current promotions
New and Forthcoming BooksNHBS Moth TrapBritish Wildlife MagazineBuyers Guides