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InhaltsangabeList of Tables List of Figures List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction and Background Part I: Where and When: The Archaeological Evidence for Early Social Life in Africa Part II: Women, Children, Men - and the Puzzles of Comparative Social Structure Part III: Other Primates and the Biological Approach Part IV: Reconstructions: Evidence from Cultural Practice and Language Epilogue Appendices to Chapter 12 Bibliography Index

Questions of 'kinship' have always been at the centre of anthropology. Was there a connection between the beginnings of language and the beginnings of organized 'kinship and marriage'? How far did evolutionary selection favour gender and generation as abstract principles for regulating social relations within and between ancient bands of our early ancestors? This book debates these and other fundamental questions about the emergence of human society. Early Human Kinship brings together original studies from leading figures in the biological sciences, social anthropology, archaeology and linguistics. The volume takes as its starting point the evolutionary link between enlarged brain capacity and the ability of human ancestors to support increasingly large population groups. It then moves beyond traditional Darwinian questions to ask how far early humans might have organized these groups according to rules about mating and social reproduction of a kind that we would recognize today. Sponsored by the Royal Anthropological Institute, in conjunction with the British Academy, Early Human Kinship provides a major breakthrough in the debate over human evolution and the nature of society.