From primitives to primates [[electronic resource] ] : a history of ethnographic and primatological analogies in the study of prehistory / / David Van Reybrouck

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910792037403321
• Autore: Reybrouck David van
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Leiden, : Sidestone Press, 2012
• ISBN: 1-299-28912-6; 90-8890-128-7
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (387 p.)
• Disciplina: 573.2
• Soggetti: Anthropology, Prehistoric - History; Anthropology - Comparative method; Ethnoarchaeology; Primates
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references.
• Nota di contenuto: Preface; Introduction; Analogies; Analogies in science; Analogies in archaeology; Models and analogies; Analogy as a process; The structure of analogy; Truth and validity; Entities and relations; An ideal case; Strengthening the analogy; The practice of analogy; The analogical algorithm; A reading grid; A corpus of texts; A choice of focus; Conclusion; The comparative method; Early ethnographic parallels; The impact of the three-age system; A revolution in antiquarian thought?; The dualism of Sven Nilsson and Daniel Wilson; Comparative ethnography, folklore and 'the parallax of man'; An important deviceThe antiquity of man and early social evolutionism; The first generation of social evolutionists; The function of contemporary savagery; Ethnographic enthusiasm; Degenerationism and classical evolutionism; Degenerationist doubts; A second round; Morgan's scheme; A zenith of similarity; Evolutionist fragmentation; Archaeology and anthropology diverge; Tylor and the Tasmanians; The comparative method's swan-song: Sollas; Divergence of opinion; Conclusion; Ethnoarchaeology; The dormancy of ethnographic analogy; Innovations in the Interbellum; Marxism and folklore; Postwar pessimism in BritainThe situation in the United States; Cultural continuity; The dilemma of the New Archaeology; The new analogy and the New Archaeology; Fieldwork and cautionary tales; Hypothetico-deductive reasoning or the benefits of testing; Between critique and inspiration; The heyday of ethnoarchaeology; The impossibility of independent testing; A thriving subdiscipline; Beyond analogy?; Place and population: a case study; Source and subject-side strategies; Decline and fall of ethnoarchaeology; The isolation of hunter-gatherer ethnoarchaeology; Anthropological doubts about hunter-gatherersContextual ethnoarchaeology; Post-processual archaeology; An age of extremes; Conclusion; The strength of ethnoarchaeological analogies; Optimism, pessimism and the redundancy of analogy; Primate models; The idea of a primate model; First episode: from primate anatomy to human anatomy; Second episode: from living to fossil anatomy; Third episode: from primate behaviour to human behaviour; Fourth episode: from primate behaviour to early human behaviour; Converging circumstances; Baboons; Washburn's baboons: from typical primates to terrestrial specialistsThe canonization of the baboon model; Why baboons?; Social carnivores and geladas; From subsistence to society: the social carnivore analogy; From dentition to diet: the gelada analogy; Remote sources and logical consistency; Chimpanzees; The feminist critique; A perfect analogy; The seductiveness of similarity; Bonobos; The disputed bonobo model; Bonobo behaviour; Entrapped by resemblance; The crisis of traditional modelling; The weaknesses of referential modelling; Phylogenetic comparison or cladistics of behaviour; Behavioural ecology
• Sommario/riassunto: Where do our images about early hominids come from? In this fascinating in-depth study, David Van Reybrouck demonstrates how input from ethnography and primatology has deeply influenced our visions about the past from the 19th century to this day - often far beyond the available evidence. Victorian scholars were keen to look at contemporary Australian and Tasmanian aboriginals to understand the enigmatic Neanderthal fossils. Likewise, today's primatologists debate to what extent bonobos, baboons or chimps may be regarded as stand-ins for early human ancestors. The belief that the contemporary