Structure and Contingency Evolutionary Processes in Life and Human History

by Bintliff, John

• ISBN13: 9780718500269
• ISBN10: 0718500261
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-03-31
• Publisher: Leicester Univ Pr

Summary

The theme of this book is the appropriate methodology for the study of the history of life on earth. In particular, it focuses on the interplay between form and structure: the things that we might predict and model and the things that we cannot predict - the arbitrary and the contingent - which may be as important, or even more important, than the way in which life on earth has evolved. The contributors are drawn from palaeontology, archaeology, anthropology and human evolution; the time scales covered are from the development of life on earth, through human evolution to later prehistory and historic archaeology. Underpinning the theme of the book is the work of Stephen Jay Gould, who has developed a distinctive philosophy of history concerning the nature of long-term and short-term evolutionary processes, particularly stressing the interplay between structure and contingency.>

Author Biography

John Bintliff studied Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge University, where he also obtained his doctorate. He is presently Reader in Archaeology at the University of Durham.

Table of Contents

Contributors	vi
Preface	vii
Introduction: The scales of contingency and punctuation in history	ix
Stephen Jay Gould
Selection and the fossil record	1	(13)
Chris Paul
Evolution and environmental controls: Palaeozoic Black Deaths	14	(17)
Michael House
Pattern and process in hominid evolution	31	(12)
Rob Foley
Contingency, patterning and species in hominid evolution	43	(59)
Alan Bilsborough
The human evolutionary time-scale and the transition between hunting and gathering, and farming	102	(16)
Robert Layton
History, ecology, contingency, sustainability	118	(14)
I. G. Simmons
Structure, contingency, narrative and timelessness	132	(17)
John Bintliff
Index	149