The Ancestress Hypothesis: Visual Art as AdaptationIn our society it has long been believed that art serves very little social purpose. Evolutionary anthropologists, however, are examining a potential role for art in human evolution. Kathryn Coe looks to the visual arts of traditional societies for clues. Because they are passed down from previous generations, traditional art forms such as body decoration, funeral ornaments, and ancestral paintings offer ways to promote social relationships among kin and codescendants of a common ancestor. Mothers used art forms to anchor themselves and their kin to the father and his kin, and to promote the survival and reproductive success of kin and descendants. Individuals who abided by this strategy, accompanied by its strict codes of cooperation, left more distant descendants than did individuals who did not. Over time, given this reproductive success, large numbers of individuals would be identified as codescendants of a common ancestor and would cooperate as if they were close kin. These cooperative codescendants were more likely to survive and leave descendants. With each new generation these clans propagated not only their genes but also their behavioral strategy, the replication or presence of "art." The book concludes by examining the changing characteristics of visual art -- including a higher value on creativity, competition, and cost -- when traditional constraints on social behavior disappear. Book jacket. |
Contents
The Ancestress Hypothesis and Visual Art An Overview | 1 |
Visual Art Techniques and Veneration of the Dead | 21 |
Changing Styles of Visual Art | 47 |
The Definition of Visual Art The First Step of the Scientific Method | 67 |
Underpinnings of the Ancestress Hypothesis | 78 |
Males as Ancestors | 96 |
Visual Art Theory Ancestress Strategy or Sexual Strategy? | 108 |
Testing the Ancestress Hypothesis | 123 |
Modern Darwinian Theory | 144 |
Reconciliation The Problem of Definitions | 152 |
Glossary | 171 |
175 | |
207 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Aborigines adaptive aesthetic altruism Amuesha ancestors ancestress hypothesis anthropology argue art style artists associated attract Australia behave burial carved cestors child claim clan close kin codescendants color common descent competition concealed ovulation cooperation copying creativity culture cupules Darwin Darwinian decoration depicted descendants dynastic emotions encourage ethnographic evolution evolutionary example explain father females figurines genes grandmother havior hierarchy Hrdy human identified important individuals infants influence inherited interactions investment involved K-strategy kin selection kinship and descent living males marriage mate maternal meaning metaphorical Miller moral natural selection nontraditional objects offspring one's paintings Paleolithic parents persistence prehistoric primates produce promote reciprocal altruism refer rituals sacred sandpainting selfish selfish genes sexual selection share siblings social behavior societies species Steadman strategies survival and reproduction symbol tattoos techniques term theory tion Tonkinson totem traditional visual art transmitted tribal tribes University Press Upper Paleolithic Venus figurines visual art women Yolngu York