The Past in Perspective: An Introduction to Human Prehistory

by Feder, Kenneth L.

• ISBN13: 9780767411929
• ISBN10: 0767411927
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-07-26
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages

Summary

This engaging introduction to the human prehistoric past presents the chronicle of human physical and cultural evolution. Rather than an encyclopedic, all-inclusive survey of the human evolutionary story, this text presents human prehistory within a framework of themes, issues, and debates.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1. Prologue to the Past

An Archaeological Genealogy • An Anthropological Perspective • Our Human Genealogy

Chapter 2. Perceiving the Past: An Intellectual History

An Evolutionary Philosophy • An Ancient World? • A Wreck of a World • Equable and Steady Change • Ancient Humans? • The Slow Agency of Existing Causes • Ancient Humans Revisited • Charles Darwin and the Antiquity of Life • The Origin of Species • Cultures Evolving • Our Modern View

Chapter 3. Probing the Past

Epistemology: How We Know What We Know • Paleoanthropological and Archaeological Sites • Analyzing Archaeological Data • Determining the Age of a Site or Specimen

Chapter 4. African Roots

Prelude • Chronicle • Miocene Preface • The First Hominids • A Fork in the Hominid Road • A Forest of Hominids • A Different Path—Homo habilis • Issues and Debates • What Were the First Steps in Hominid Evolution? • What Caused the Proliferation of Hominid Species? • How Do We Know the Hominids Were Upright? • Is There Other Evidence for Bipedality? • Why Bipedalism? • What Do We Know About the Early Hominid Brain? • Were the Early Hominids Hunters? • Single or Multiple Species? • Rates of Change in Evolution • Case Study Close-Up • Visiting the Past

Chapter 5. The Human Lineage

Prelude • Chronicle • Homo erectus • Hominids Conquer the World • The Age of Ice • Homo erectus: The Toolmaker • Subsistence • Issues and Debates • Did the Pleistocene Cause the Evolution of Homo erectus? • What Enabled the Geographic Expansion of Homo erectus? • The “Art” of Making Tools • Raising Homo erectus • When Did Homo erectus Become Extinct? • Stability or Change? • Case Study Close-Up • Visiting the Past

Chapter 6. Our Immediate Ancestors: The Premodern Humans

Prelude • Chronicle • Premodern Humans: Fossil Evidence • Premodern Humans: Cultural Evidence • The Neandertals • Neandertal Culture • Issues and Debates • Why Are the Neandertals Extinct? • Could Neandertals Talk? • Did Neandertals Worship Cave Bears? • Did Neandertals Produce Art and Make Music? • Were Neandertal Babies Less Atricial Than Modern Babies? • Case Study Close-Up • Visiting the Past

Chapter 7. The Evolution of Us: The Origins of Modern Humans

Prelude • Mitochondrial DNA and Molecular Archaeology • Resurrecting Extinct Species • Molecular Archaeology and the Evolution of Human Beings • Chronicle • The Population Replacement Model • The Multiregional Model • A Middle Ground: Genetic Replacement • Issues and DebatesReplacement or Continuity? • How Can Modern Human Genetics Inform Us about the Ancient Origins of Humanity? • Which Evidence Is Better: Genes or Bones? • Case Study Close-Up • Visiting the Past

Chapter 8. Expanding Intellectual Horizons: Art and Ideas in the Upper Paleolithic

Prelude • Chronicle • The Upper Paleolithic Great Leap Forward • The Meaning of Upper Paleolithic Art • Issues and Debates • Why Is There No Correlation Between Anatomical and Behavioral Modernity? • What Does the Art of the Upper Paleolithic Mean? • Does the Paleolithic Have a Gender? • Case Study Close-Up • Visiting the Past

Chapter 9. Expanding Geographical Horizons: New Worlds

Prelude • Chronicle • The Settlement of Greater Australia • The Earliest Occupation of Greater Australia • The Spread Through Australia • Tasmania • Greater Australia: A Broad Range of Adaptations • Coming to America • The Source of Los Indios • When Did the First Migrants Arrive? • The First Human Settlement of America • Alaska • Clovis • Into the PaciIssues and Debates • Who Were the First Americans and When Did They Get Here? • Who Is Kennewick Man and What Does He Have to Do with the Settling of the Americas? • What—or Who—Killed the American Megafauna? • Case Study Close-Up • Visiting the Past

Chapter 10. After the Ice: Cultural Change in the Post-Pleistocene

Prelude • Chronicle • Europe • North America • Asia • Australia • South America • Africa • Issues and Debates • Was the Mesolithic Only a “Prelude”? • Case Study Close-Up • Visiting the Past

Chapter 11. The Neolithic: Roots of a Revolution in Subsistence and Society

Prelude • Chronicle • Humans Taking the Place of Nature: ArtiIssues and Debates • How Was Domestication Accomplished? • The Remarkably Modern Cuisine of the Ancient World • Neolithic Nutrition • Was Agriculture the “Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race”? • Implications of the Neolithic: The Roots of Social Complexity • Case Study Close-Up • Visiting the Past

Chapter 12. The Roots of Complexity

Prelude • The Construction of Stonehenge • Imagining Stonehenge • Chronicle • Simplicity and Complexity • A Revolution in Subsistence, a Revolution in Society • Complexity’s Earliest Traces in the Old World • Complexity’s Earliest Traces in the New World • Issues and Debates • Is Complexity Inevitable? • Is Complexity Restricted to Food Producers? • Case Study Close-Up • Visiting the Past

Chapter 13. An Explosion of Complexity: The Flowering of Civilization in the Old World

Prelude • Chronicle • The Evolution of the State • The Character of Civilization • The Geography of Civilizations • Mesopotamia • Egypt of the Pharaohs • Other African Civilizations • The Indus Valley Civilization • The Civilization of Ancient China • Minoan Crete • Issues and Debates • Why Did State Societies Develop? • Case Study Close-Up • The Khmer Kingdom • Visiting the Past

Chapter 14. An Explosion of Complexity: Ranked Societies in the Old and New Worlds

Prelude • Cahokia • Chronicle • Complexity in Prehistoric America North of Mexico • The Mound Builders of North America: Earliest Manifestations • Great Zimbabwe • Issues and Debates • Is the State Inevitable? • The Myth of the Mound Builders • Case Study Close-Up • Visiting the Past

Chapter 15. An Explosion of Complexity: The Flowering of Civilization in the New World

Prelude • Chronicle • Mesoamerica • South America • Issues and Debates • Why Do Civilizations Collapse? • Case Study Close-Up • Visiting the Past

Chapter 16. Evolutionary Epilogue

Past Perspectives, Future Directions

Glossary

References

Index