
Origins of Human Innovation and Creativity
Description
Key Features
- Gives a full, original and multidisciplinary perspective on how and why creativity evolved in the Middle to Late Pleistocene
- Enhances our understanding of the big leaps forward in creativity at certain times
- Assesses the intellectual creativity of Homo erectus, H. neanderthalensis, and H. sapiens via their artefacts
Readership
Table of Contents
Series Editor
Contributors
Chapter 1 Origins of Human Innovation and Creativity
1.1 The Problem of Stasis in Stone Tool Technology
1.2 The Evolutionary Ecology of Creativity
1.3 Emergent Patterns of Creativity and Innovation in Early Technologies
1.4 Concluding Remarks
Chapter 2 Creativity and Complex Society Before the Upper Palaeolithic Transition
2.1 A Definition
2.2 Modelling the Hominin Mind
2.3 The Number of Minds and the Evolution of Creativity
2.4 Social Brains and Active Personal Networks
2.5 Creativity, the Senses and Social Complexity
2.6 Conclusion
Chapter 3 North African Origins of Symbolically Mediated Behaviour and the Aterian
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Symbolism and Humans
3.3 North Africa During the MSA and the Aterian
3.4 A revised Chronology for the Aterian
3.5 Innovations in the Aterian
3.5 Environmental Context for Developments in the Aterian
3.6 Discussion
Chapter 4 Personal Ornaments and Symbolism Among the Neanderthals
Chapter 5 Invention, Reinvention and Innovation
Chapter 6 Emergent Patterns of Creativity and Innovation in Early Technologies
Chapter 7 The Evolutionary Ecology of Creativity
7.1 Modern Humans as a ‘Major Transition’ in Evolution
7.2 Pair-bonding and Courtship Displays
7.3 Foraging Strategy and Information-Sharing
7.4 The Emergence of Phenotypic Thought
7.5 The Archaeology of Alternative Reality
7.6 Conclusions
Chapter 8 Climate, Creativity and Competition
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Possible Causes and Scales of Change
8.3 Social Processes of Population Expansion and Contraction
8.4 Precision and Accuracy in Dating the Spread of Behavioural Novelty
8.5 Neanderthal Innovations
8.6 Neanderthals, Climatic Change and Innovation
8.7 Future Directions
Note
Index
Product details
- No. of pages: 140
- Language: English
- Copyright: © Elsevier 2012
- Published: July 25, 2012
- Imprint: Elsevier
- eBook ISBN: 9780444538222
- Hardcover ISBN: 9780444538215
About the Author
S. Elias
Following his PhD, Scott became a post-doctoral fellow under Prof. Alan Morgan in the Earth Science Department of the University of Waterloo, Ontario. He also spent six months as a visiting scientist at the Geobotanical Institute of the University of Berne, Switzerland, in 1981. Scott returned to the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), University of Colorado, in 1982, and was a research associate and fellow of the institute during the next 20 years. His research continued to focus on paleoenvironmental reconstructions based on fossil insect assemblages. He has authored six books on paleoecology and natural history of Alaska, the Rocky Mountains, and the arid Southwest. In 2000, Scott accepted a lectureship in the Geography Department of Royal Holloway, University of London. He also has maintained an affiliation with INSTAAR. He is now a Reader in Physical Geography at Royal Holloway.
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