Table of Contents

Preface
Contributors
List of Illustrations and Tables
Sources
I: Background
1: R.I.M. Dunbar: Mind the Gap: or why we aren't just great apes
2: Clive Gamble, J.A.J. Gowlett and R.I.M. Dunbar: The social brain and the shape of the palaeolithic
II: Social Brain and Cognition
3: Susanne Shultz and R.I.M. Dunbar: The social brain hypothesis: an evolutionary perspective on the neurobiology of social behaviour
4: Susanne Shultz, Emma Nelson and R.I.M. Dunbar: Hominin cognitive evolution: identifying patterns and processes in the fossil and archaeological record
5: James Cole: The Identity Model: a theory to access visual display and hominin cognition within the Palaeolithic
6: J.A.J. Gowlett: The longest transition or multiple revolutions? Curves and steps in the record of human origins
III: Processes of Social Bonding
7: A.J. Sutcliffe, R.I.M. Dunbar, Jens Binder and Holly Arrow: Relationships and the social brain hypothesis: integrating evolutionary and psychological perspectives
8: S.B.G. Roberts, Holly Arrow, Julia Lehmann and R.I.M. Dunbar: Close social relationships: an evolutionary perspective
9: A.J. Machin and R.I.M. Dunbar: The brain opioid theory of social attachment: a review of the evidence
IV: Community, Time and Cohesion
10: R.I.M. Dunbar, A.H. Korstjens and Julia Lehmann: Time as an ecological constraint
11: Julia Lehmann, P.C. Lee and R.I.M. Dunbar: Unravelling the evolutionary function of communities
12: R.I.M. Dunbar and J.A.J. Gowlett: Fireside chat: the impact of fire on hominin socioecology
13: R.I.M. Dunbar: Bridging the bonding gap: the transition from primates to humans
V: The Social World in Antiquity
14: Susanne Shultz, Christopher Opie, Emma Nelson, Q.D. Atkinson and R.I.M. Dunbar: Evolution of primate social systems: implications for hominin social evolution
15: R.I.M. Dunbar, Julia Lehmann, A.H. Korstjens and J.A.J. Gowlett: The road to modern humans: time budgets, fission-fusion sociality, kinship and the division of labour in hominin evolution
16: Eiluned Pearce, Andy Shuttleworth, M.J. Grove and R.H. Layton: The costs of being a high latitude hominin
17: Fiona Coward and R.I.M. Dunbar: Communities on the edge of civilisation
VI: Language, Kinship and Culture
18: J.A.J. Gowlett: The elements of design form in Acheulean bifaces: modes, modalities, rules and language
19: R.I.M. Dunbar: Why only humans have language
20: Alan Barnard: Social origins: sharing, exchange, kinship
21: Fiona Coward and Clive Gamble: Big brains, small worlds: material culture and the evolution of mind
Appendix: Selected Principal Publications of the Lucy Project (2003-2012)
Index

About the Author

Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Magdalen College. 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).
Clive Gamble is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Southampton. John Gowlett is Professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology at the University of Liverpool.

Reviews

This is a pretty complete reading for those who want to, at once, step into the issue of the social brain. The field is vast and heterogeneous, and this collection of articles supplies the possibility to have a comprehensive base to begin with.
*Emiliano Bruner, European Journal of Archaeology*