Structure and Contingency: Evolutionary Processes in Life and Human History - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0718500261 ISBN 13: 9780718500269

Publisher: Leicester University Press, 1999

Synopsis

The theme of this book is the appropriate methodology for the study of the history of life on earth. In particular, it focuses on the interplay between form and structure: the things that we might predict and model and the things that we cannot predict the arbitrary and the contingent which may be as important, or even more important, than the way in which life on earth has evolved. The contributors are drawn from palaeontology, archaeology, anthropology and human evolution; the time scales covered are from the development of life on earth, through human evolution to later prehistory and historic archaeology. Underpinning the theme of the book is the work of Stephen Jay Gould, who has developed a distinctive philosophy of history concerning the nature of longterm and shortterm evolutionary processes, particularly stressing the interplay between structure and contingency.

About this title

About the Author

John Bintliff was Professor of Classical and Mediterranean Archaeology at Universiteit Leiden NL, and is now Honorary Professor in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh

Edition details

• Publisher: Leicester University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0718500261
• ISBN 13: 9780718500269
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 164
• Editor: Bintliff John