What is the history of human populations? How are cultural traditions maintained and changed over time? Why did people destroy their environments in the past and were they ever conservationists? What led to the emergence of marked social inequalities? These are some of the questions that this text addresses and answers, in an application of neo-Darwinian evolutionary ideas to the human past. Stephen Shennan opens with the study of human behaviour, as acted upon by natural selection, and goes on to demonstrate that the same ideas can be applied to human societies, not just through the genes but through what Richard Dawkins has called "memes", units of cultural information which are passed on in our second inheritance system, culture. The book ranges from life history theory to game theory, and from the origins of farming to the collapse of societies.
- ISBN10 0500051186
- ISBN13 9780500051184
- Publish Date 21 October 2002
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 23 January 2014
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Thames & Hudson Ltd
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 304
- Language English