Evolution of Social Behaviour Patterns in Primates and Man A Joint Discussion Meeting of the Royal Society and the British Academy

Derived from a Royal Society/British Academy meeting, the papers' topics range from cultural and social behavior among non-human primates, through the interaction of cognitive development with social organization during the Upper Paleolithic, to behavior among modern humans. The volume as a whole reflects the important recent developments in such areas as behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology and the origin and function of language, and scholars and students in these areas will find this information invaluable.Brings an interdisciplinary approach to an exciting area of behavioural science research. 14 contributions look at the evolution of cultural behaviour from an evolutionary perspective.The fourteen contributions testify to the increasing co-operation which is bringing together biologists, primatologists, archaeologists, psychologists, linguists and anthropologists who share a common interest in the study of social and cultural behaviour from an evolutionary perspective. The papers, derived from a Royal Society/British Academy meeting, range in topic from cultural and social behaviour among non-human primates, through the interaction of cognitive development with social organization during the Upper Palaeolithic, to behaviour (including linguistic behaviour) among modern humans. This volume reflects the important recent developments in such areas as behavioural ecology, evolutionary psychology and the origin and function of language.Unique in bringing an interdisciplinary approach to one of the most exciting areas of current behavioural science research, these papers are by distinguished researchers from Europe and the United States at the forefront of their respective disciplines, whether biologists, primatologists, archaeologists, psychologists, linguists, or anthropologists.`A specialised volume with an excellent interdisciplinary mixture ofauthors. Although quite specialised, the chapters are still written in such away as to make them accessible to non-experts in each discipline.'Infacncia y Aprendizaje`we have a surprisingly cohesive series of chapters, from the ecology ofnon-human primate grouyping through archaeology and the evolution of culture tolanguage and how humans think ... The chapters in this book give a very completecoverage of how we might continue the search.'A.H. Harcourt, TREE vol. 12, no. 11 November 1997