Alcohol and Humans A Long and Social Affair

by Hockings, Kimberley; Dunbar, Robin

• ISBN13: 9780191878442
• ISBN10: 0191878448
• Format: eBook
• Copyright: 2020-01-23
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Author Biography

Kimberley Hockings, Lecturer in Conservation Science, University of Exeter, UK,Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology, University of Oxford, UK

Kimberley Hockings is a lecturer in Conservation Science at the Centre of Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter. Her research examines the ways in which human and nonhuman great apes coexist in shared landscapes, including in their overlapping use of resources such as fermented beverages. From this she has developed an interest in the evolutionary origins of ethanol consumption in humans. To effectively understand human and wildlife components of interactions her research increasingly combines biological, ecological, and social science approaches. She conducts fieldwork in Guinea and Guinea-Bissau, west Africa, and is a member of the Great Ape Section of the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group.

Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford, and Emeritus Fellow of Magdalen College. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1998. His principal research interests focus on the evolution of sociality (with particular reference to primates and humans). He is best known for the social brain hypothesis, the gossip theory of language evolution and Dunbar's Number (the limit on the number of relationships that we can manage). He has published 30 books and edited volumes and over 300 journal articles.

Table of Contents

1. The puzzle of alcohol consumption, Robin Dunbar and Kimberley Hockings
2. The natural biology of dietary ethanol, and its implications for primate evolution, Robert Dudley
3. Hominoid Ancestry and the Adaptation to Dietary Ethanol, Matthew Carrigan
4. The Importance of Raffia Palm Wine to Coexisting Humans and Chimpanzees, Kimberley Hockings, Miho Ito and Gen Yamakoshi
5. The earliest toasts: archaeological evidence of the social and cultural construction of alcohol in prehistoric Europe, Elisa Guerra-Doce
6. Uncorking the past: alcoholic fermentation as humankind's first biotechnology, Patrick McGovern
7. Rituals and feasting as incentives for cooperative action at early Neolithic Gobekli Tepe, Oliver Dietrich and Laura Dietrich
8. Alcohol as embodied material culture: anthropological reflections on the deep entanglement of humans and alcohol, Michael Dietler
9. The nature of sweetness: an indigenous fermentation complex in Amazonian Guyana, Lewis Daly
10. Chicha as Water: Traditional Fermented Beer Consumption Among Forager Horticulturalists in the Bolivian Amazon, Asher Rosinger and Hilary Bethancourt
11. Feasting and its Role in Human Community Formation, Robin Dunbar
12. Through the drinking glass: a long history of pints and performative materialities in England, Angela McShane
13. Alcohol and humans: reflections and prospects, Kimberley Hockings and Robin Dunbar