Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Evolutionary reconstructions of great ape intelligence
- 2 Enhanced cognitive capacity as a contingent fact of hominid phylogeny
- PART I COGNITION IN LIVING GREAT APES
- PART II MODERN GREAT APE ADAPTATION
- PART III FOSSIL GREAT APE ADAPTATIONS
- Introduction
- 13 Paleoenvironments and the evolution of adaptability in great apes
- 14 Cranial evidence of the evolution of intelligence in fossil apes
- 15 Life history and cognitive evolution in the apes
- 16 Fossil hominoid diets, extractive foraging, and the origins of great ape intelligence
- 17 Paleontology, terrestriality, and the intelligence of great apes
- 18 Body size and intelligence in hominoid evolution
- Part IV INTEGRATION
- Author index
- Species index
- Subject index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Evolutionary reconstructions of great ape intelligence
- 2 Enhanced cognitive capacity as a contingent fact of hominid phylogeny
- PART I COGNITION IN LIVING GREAT APES
- PART II MODERN GREAT APE ADAPTATION
- PART III FOSSIL GREAT APE ADAPTATIONS
- Introduction
- 13 Paleoenvironments and the evolution of adaptability in great apes
- 14 Cranial evidence of the evolution of intelligence in fossil apes
- 15 Life history and cognitive evolution in the apes
- 16 Fossil hominoid diets, extractive foraging, and the origins of great ape intelligence
- 17 Paleontology, terrestriality, and the intelligence of great apes
- 18 Body size and intelligence in hominoid evolution
- Part IV INTEGRATION
- Author index
- Species index
- Subject index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
In this part the contributors explore a variety of attributes of the paleobiology of fossil hominoids that may contribute to an understanding of the evolution of great ape intelligence. Our request to these experts, in each topic that is the focus of their contributions, was to focus attention on the way in which a single aspect of paleobiology may inform this issue. This is a twoedged sword. Many authors, most of whom had thought relatively little about the broader question of great ape intelligence (myself included), found new insights from the data they have long been contemplating from other perspectives. On the other hand, since we asked contributors to restrict themselves to a focused topic, many readers may feel that each contributor thinks their area of interest is the one most likely to “explain” great ape cognitive evolution. Nothing could be farther from the truth. All the contributors to this part of the volume recognize that their topic, whether it is environment and ecology, diet, locomotion, size, or life history, is one piece of the puzzle. When authors in this part of the book reach conclusions on the relevance of a specific aspect of fossil ape paleobiology to understanding great ape cognition, it is because the editors pushed them to do it, and all know that each attribute is but a facet of a very complex problem.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Evolution of ThoughtEvolutionary Origins of Great Ape Intelligence, pp. 235 - 236Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004