Thoughtful Foragers

Download or read book Thoughtful Foragers written by Steven J. Mithen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1990-06-29 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thoughtful Foragers is about hunter-gatherer decision making. The author explores the implications of the human mind as a product of biological evolution for the way in which humans solve foraging problems. He draws on studies form ethology, psychology and ethnography prior to turning his attention to prehistoric hunter-gatherers. He attempts to construct explanations for patterns in the archaeological record by an explicit focus on decision making by individuals. Thoughtful Foragers will appeal to specialists in European prehistory as well as to those interested in archaeological theory and method. It makes some very significant advances, which will be of real importance for the field of evolutionary theory in relation to human evolution and the evaluation of human social systems.