- 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 <i>Homo sapiens</i> 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 <i>Homo sapiens</i>
- 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
Herto Brains and Minds: Behaviour of Early Homo sapiens from the Middle Awash
Herto Brains and Minds: Behaviour of Early Homo sapiens from the Middle Awash
- Chapter:
- (p.43) 3 Herto Brains and Minds: Behaviour of Early Homo sapiens from the Middle Awash
- Source:
- Social Brain, Distributed Mind
- Author(s):
Yonas Beyene
- Publisher:
- British Academy
The discovery of three late Middle Pleistocene hominid crania, Homo sapiens idaltu, at Herto in the Middle Awash research area in Ethiopia in 1997 shed considerable light on this little-known period in Africa. These fossils consist of two adults' and a child's crania. All are morphologically intermediate between geologically earlier African fossils and anatomically modern later Pleistocene humans. The three Herto Homo sapiens idaltu crania show cutmarks indicating defleshing using sharp-edged stone tools. The post-mortem modifications and manipulation of the crania, demonstrated best on the child and broken adult crania, suggest that Homo sapiens idaltu performed ritual mortuary practices of which the dimension, context and meaning might only be revealed by further discoveries.
Keywords: Ethiopia, Homo sapiens idaltu, stone tools, Pleistocene era, ritual mortuary practices, African fossils
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- 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 <i>Homo sapiens</i> 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 <i>Homo sapiens</i>
- 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
