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13 - Evolution of the Human Family

from Part IV - Group Living

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2020

By
Craig T. Palmer  and
Kathryn Coe
Edited by
Lance Workman ,
Will Reader  and
Jerome H. Barkow
Lance Workman
Affiliation:
University of South Wales
Will Reader
Affiliation:
Sheffield Hallam University
Jerome H. Barkow
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia
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Summary

After describing common conceptions of the evolution of the human family as a unit, this chapter examines several problems with this conception and presents an alternative conception of the human family as a mechanism of tradition transmission instead of as a unit. It concludes with a discussion of some of the directions for future research generated by this reconception of the evolution of the human family.

The common conception of the family as a unit sees the evolution of the human family as a chain, in which each link in the chain is a successive form of family unit. Descriptions of this chain typically start with a hypothesized prehuman family unit that is largely based on comparisons with other primates and the fossil record, and end with the forms of family units found in the ethnographic record.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior , pp. 158 - 166
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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