Awards

• Commended for PROSE Awards 2008
• Commended for PROSE Awards: Biological & Life Sciences 2008
• Commended for PROSE Awards: Biological & Life Sciences 2008.
• Runner-up for AAP/Professional and Scholarly Publishing Awards: Biological Science 2008.
• Winner of W.W. Howells Book Prize 2010

Overview

At some point in the course of evolution-from a primeval social organization of early hominids-all human societies, past and present, would emerge. In this account of the dawn of human society, Bernard Chapais shows that our knowledge about kinship and society in nonhuman primates supports, and informs, ideas first put forward by the distinguished social anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss. Chapais contends that only a few evolutionary steps were required to bridge the gap between the kinship structures of our closest relatives-chimpanzees and bonobos-and the human kinship configuration. The pivotal event, the author proposes, was the evolution of sexual alliances. Pair-bonding transformed a social organization loosely based on kinship into one exhibiting the strong hold of kinship and affinity. The implication is that the gap between chimpanzee societies and pre-linguistic hominid societies is narrower than we might think. Many books on kinship have been written by social anthropologists, but Primeval Kinship is the first book dedicated to the evolutionary origins of human kinship. And perhaps equally important, it is the first book to suggest that the study of kinship and social organization can provide a link between social and biological anthropology.

Full Product Details

Author:   Bernard Chapais
Publisher:   Harvard University Press
Imprint:   Harvard University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.544kg
ISBN:  

9780674046412

ISBN 10:   0674046412
Pages:   368
Publication Date:   15 March 2010
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

* Preface 1. The Question of the Origin of Human Society * A Forsaken Quest * The Deep Structure of Human Societies I. Primatologists As Evolutionary Historians 2. Primatology and the Evolution of Human Behavior * The Phylogenetic Decomposition Principle * Reconstructing the Exogamy Configuration 3. The Uterine Kinship Legacy * Primatological Theories and Primate Legacies * Appraising Primate Kinship * The Domain of Uterine Kindred in Primates * How Are Uterine Kin Recognized? * The Origin of Group-wide Kinship Structures 4. From Biological to Cultural Kinship * Beyond Consanguineal Kinship * The ""Genealogical Unity of Mankind"" * The Bilateral Character of Human Kinship 5. The Incest Avoidance Legacy * Elements of a Primatological Theory of Incest Avoidance * Humankind's Primate Heritage 6. From Behavioral Regularities to Institutionalized Rules * The Anthropologists' Treatment of the Primate Data * The Westermarck Knot * The Morality Problem * Lessons from Comparative Anatomy II. The Exogamy Configuration Decomposed 7. Levi-Strauss and the Deep Structure of Human Society * Reciprocal Exogamy as a Deep Structuring Principle * Reciprocal Exogamy as Archaic * The Convergence beyond the Critiques * Levi-Strauss and the Primate Data 8. Human Society Out of the Evolutionary Vacuum * Leslie White and the Primate Origins of Exogamy * Elman Service and the Primitive Exogamous Band * Robin Fox and the Initial Deconstruction of Exogamy 9. The Building Blocks of Exogamy * Pinpointing the Distinctiveness of Exogamy * Reconstructing Human Society: The Task Ahead * A Once Irreducible System III. The Exogamy Configuration Reconstructed 10. The Ancestral Male Kin Group Hypothesis * The Patrilocal Band Model * Male Philopatry in Apes * The Homology Hypothesis * Updating the Ancestral Male Kin Group Hypothesis * The Gorilla Alternative 11. The Evolutionary History of Pair-Bonding * The ""Invariant Core of the Family"" * Pair-Bonds as Parental Partnerships * The Pitfall of the Modern Family Reference * A Two-Step Evolutionary Sequence * Monogamy as a Special Case of Polygyny * The Evolutionary History of the Sexual Division of Labor 12 Pair-Bonding and the Reinvention of Kinship * The Fundamental Equation of the Exogamy Configuration * Kinship in the Ancestral Male Kin Group * Fatherhood * The Institutionalized Denial of Paternity * The Development of Agnatic Kinship Structures 13. Biparentality and the Transformation of Siblingships * Chimpanzee Siblingships * Fatherhood and the Evolution of Strong Brotherhoods * Fatherhood and the Brother--Sister Bond * The Added Effect of Shorter Interbirth Intervals 14. Beyond the Local Group: The Rise of the Tribe * Male Pacification as a Prerequisite for the Tribe * Females as Peacemakers: The Consanguinity Route * Females as Peacemakers: The Affinity Route * The Initial Impetus * The Prelinguistic Tribe 15. From Male Philopatry to Residential Diversity * Some Serious Discrepancies * The Emergence of Residential Diversity * Ancestral Patrilocality and Grandmothering 16. Brothers, Sisters, and the Founding Principle of Exogamy * The First Step: Outmarriage * Affinal Brotherhoods and the Origin of Exogamy Rules * From Siblings-in-Law to Cross-Cousins * The ""Atom of Kinship"" Revisited IV. Unilineal Descent 17. Filiation, Descent, and Ideology * The African Model of Unilineal Descent Groups * The Chestnut within the Model 18. The Primate Origins of Unilineal Descent Groups * Group Membership through Birth * Kinship-Based Segmentation * The Genealogical Boundaries of Exogamy * The Unisexual Transmission of Status * Primitive Corporateness * A Multilevel Structure of Solidarity 19. The Evolutionary History of Human Descent * Female Kin Groups as Precultural Matriclans * The Residential Basis of Proto--Descent Groups * The Latent Patriclan * Matrilineality as a Male Affair 20. Conclusion: Human Society as Contingent * References * Index

Reviews

Bernard Chapais offers a powerful and controversial new account of hominid origins...His book offers us one more scenario of our human trajectory...Chapais' thesis urges us to consider very carefully why humans are so different. -- Monique Borgerhoff Mulder Nature 20080703 Chapais has written a bold, new book that promises nothing less than the unveiling of the original, earliest form of human society and an account of how it developed over evolutionary time. The book indeed fulfills this promise, presenting a persuasive, well-argued, logical evolutionary scenario based on empirical data and a sound comparative method...Primeval Kinship presents powerful arguments concerning the origin and evolutionary path of human kinship. It reopens old questions, long abandoned, about the origins of human society, and addresses them with a brilliant synthesis of recent primate data. Chapais has demonstrated that primatology is now positioned to make significant contributions to the study of human kinship. This work will undoubtedly open further debate and inspire further research. It effectively dispels the view that human kinship is a purely cultural construction or that kinship can be understood outside the framework of our primate legacy. -- Linda Stone Evolutionary Psychology 20081201 Primeval Kinship represents a bold effort to integrate two wildly disparate disciplines, primatology and cultural anthropology, to understand long-standing questions about the evolution of human society. With an increasing tendency toward specialization in science, there are few who dare step outside of their comfort zones to attempt broad, wide-ranging syntheses on problems that go to the heart of what it is to be human. In this regard, Chapais should be lauded for his labors and for an extremely stimulating read. His reasoned and careful treatment of the primate data provides considerable food for thought about how and why we have come to be the way we are. -- John C. Mitani Primates 20090701

Primeval Kinship is a treasure chest of comparative research on human and primate social structure, organization, and behavior. This book will reignite and reinvigorate discussions of the evolution of primate and human society. It will be a model from which future social and physical anthropologists, primatologists, and social scientists can build. -- Robert Wald Sussman, Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis Bernard Chapais offers a powerful and controversial new account of hominid origins...His book offers us one more scenario of our human trajectory...Chapais' thesis urges us to consider very carefully why humans are so different. -- Monique Borgerhoff Mulder * Nature * Chapais has written a bold, new book that promises nothing less than the unveiling of the original, earliest form of human society and an account of how it developed over evolutionary time. The book indeed fulfills this promise, presenting a persuasive, well-argued, logical evolutionary scenario based on empirical data and a sound comparative method...Primeval Kinship presents powerful arguments concerning the origin and evolutionary path of human kinship. It reopens old questions, long abandoned, about the origins of human society, and addresses them with a brilliant synthesis of recent primate data. Chapais has demonstrated that primatology is now positioned to make significant contributions to the study of human kinship. This work will undoubtedly open further debate and inspire further research. It effectively dispels the view that human kinship is a purely cultural construction or that kinship can be understood outside the framework of our primate legacy. -- Linda Stone * Evolutionary Psychology * Primeval Kinship represents a bold effort to integrate two wildly disparate disciplines, primatology and cultural anthropology, to understand long-standing questions about the evolution of human society. With an increasing tendency toward specialization in science, there are few who dare step outside of their comfort zones to attempt broad, wide-ranging syntheses on problems that go to the heart of what it is to be human. In this regard, Chapais should be lauded for his labors and for an extremely stimulating read. His reasoned and careful treatment of the primate data provides considerable food for thought about how and why we have come to be the way we are. -- John C. Mitani * Primates *

Author Information

Bernard Chapais is Professor of Anthropology, University of Montréal.

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