Social DNA: Rethinking Our Evolutionary Past - Paperback

by M. Kay Martin (Author)

What set our ancestors off on a separate evolutionary trajectory was the ability to flex their reproductive and social strategies in response to changing environmental conditions. Exploring new cross-disciplinary research that links this capacity to critical changes in the organization of the primate brain, Social DNA presents a new synthesis of ideas on human social origins - challenging models that trace our beginnings to traits shaped by ancient hunting economies, or to genetic platforms shared with contemporary apes.

Author Biography

M. Kay Martin has a diversified research, planning, and management background in the academic, public, and private sectors; she has taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has since held executive posts in applied anthropology, environmental research, resource conservation, and other fields. She was the principal author of Female of the Species (1975, Columbia University Press) and has also published ethnohistorical and cross-cultural studies on foraging societies.