- Title Pages
- Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface
-
1 The Social Brain and the Distributed Mind -
2 Technologies of Séparation and the Evolution of Social Extension -
3 Herto Brains and Minds: Behaviour of Early Homo sapiens from the Middle Awash -
4 Social Networks and Social Complexity in Female-bonded Primates -
5 Human Social Evolution: A Comparison of Hunter-gatherer and Chimpanzee Social Organization -
6 Constraints on Social Networks -
7 Social Networks and Community in the Viking Age -
8 Deacon's Dilemma: The Problem of Pair-bonding in Human Evolution -
9 The Evolution of Altruism via Social Addiction -
10 From Experiential-based to Relational-based Forms of Social Organization: A Major Transition in the Evolution of Homo sapiens -
11 Networks and the Evolution of Socio-material Differentiation -
12 When Individuals Do Not Stop at the Skin -
13 Cliques, Coalitions, Comrades and Colleagues: Sources of Cohesion in Groups -
14 The Socio-religious Brain: A Developmental Model -
15 Some Functions of Collective Forgetting -
16 What is Cognition? Extended Cognition and the Criterion of the Cognitive -
17 Firing Up the Social Brain -
18 A Technological Fix for ‘Dunbar's Dilemma’? -
19 The Archaeology of Group Size -
20 Fragmenting Hominins and the Presencing of Early Palaeolithic Social Worlds -
21 Small Worlds, Material Culture and Ancient Near Eastern Social Networks -
22 Excavating the Prehistoric Mind: The Brain as a Cultural Artefact and Material Culture as Biological Extension -
Abstracts
- Index
Firing Up the Social Brain
Firing Up the Social Brain
- Chapter:
- (p.340) (p.341) 17 Firing Up the Social Brain
- Source:
- Social Brain, Distributed Mind
- Author(s):
John Gowlett
- Publisher:
- British Academy
The mastery of fire is a great human achievement which has helped shape our species. This chapter addresses the wider importance of fire, arguing that it is part of a fundamental motor of human evolution, deeply tied into our biology as well as economy and technology, and indeed a motor of the social brain. It seems likely that fire was involved in this nexus from a very early period, probably back to the time of increases in human brain size in the early Pleistocene, and indeed that it may have been a necessity for the subsequent physical evolutionary and social developments in Homo. Fire may be associated so strongly with imagery, imagination and symbolism in the modern world as a result of its primary role in effecting transformation of materials, and acting to link various strands of material culture.
Keywords: human evolution, fire, social brain, biology, Homo species, material culture
British Academy Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
- Title Pages
- Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface
-
1 The Social Brain and the Distributed Mind -
2 Technologies of Séparation and the Evolution of Social Extension -
3 Herto Brains and Minds: Behaviour of Early Homo sapiens from the Middle Awash -
4 Social Networks and Social Complexity in Female-bonded Primates -
5 Human Social Evolution: A Comparison of Hunter-gatherer and Chimpanzee Social Organization -
6 Constraints on Social Networks -
7 Social Networks and Community in the Viking Age -
8 Deacon's Dilemma: The Problem of Pair-bonding in Human Evolution -
9 The Evolution of Altruism via Social Addiction -
10 From Experiential-based to Relational-based Forms of Social Organization: A Major Transition in the Evolution of Homo sapiens -
11 Networks and the Evolution of Socio-material Differentiation -
12 When Individuals Do Not Stop at the Skin -
13 Cliques, Coalitions, Comrades and Colleagues: Sources of Cohesion in Groups -
14 The Socio-religious Brain: A Developmental Model -
15 Some Functions of Collective Forgetting -
16 What is Cognition? Extended Cognition and the Criterion of the Cognitive -
17 Firing Up the Social Brain -
18 A Technological Fix for ‘Dunbar's Dilemma’? -
19 The Archaeology of Group Size -
20 Fragmenting Hominins and the Presencing of Early Palaeolithic Social Worlds -
21 Small Worlds, Material Culture and Ancient Near Eastern Social Networks -
22 Excavating the Prehistoric Mind: The Brain as a Cultural Artefact and Material Culture as Biological Extension -
Abstracts
- Index
