Animal Social Complexity: Intelligence, Culture, and Individualized Societies

ISBN 10: 0674009290 / ISBN 13: 9780674009295

Published by Harvard University Press, 2003

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Animal Social Complexity: Intelligence, Culture, and Individualized Societies
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674009290
• ISBN 13: 9780674009295
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

For over 25 years, primatologists have speculated that intelligence, at least in monkeys and apes, evolved as an adaptation to the complicated social milieu of hard-won friendships and bitterly contested rivalries. Yet the Balkanization of animal research has prevented us from studying the same problem in other large-brained, long-lived animals, such as hyenas and elephants, bats and sperm whales. Social complexity turns out to be widespread indeed. For example, in many animal societies one individual's innovation, such as tool use or a hunting technique, may spread within the group, thus creating a distinct culture. As this collection of studies on a wide range of species shows, animals develop a great variety of traditions, which in turn affect fitness and survival.

The editors argue that future research into complex animal societies and intelligence will change the perception of animals as gene machines, programmed to act in particular ways and perhaps elevate them to a status much closer to our own. At a time when humans are perceived more biologically than ever before, and animals as more cultural, are we about to witness the dawn of a truly unified social science, one with a distinctly cross-specific perspective?

About the Authors

Frans B. M. de Waal was Charles Howard Candler Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Emory University and former director of the Living Links Center for the Advanced Study of Ape and Human Evolution at the Emory National Primate Research Center.

Peter L. Tyack is Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

William C. McGrew is Professor of Anthropology and Zoology at Miami University, Ohio.

Susan Perry is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Carel van Schaik is Professor and Director of the Anthropological Institute and Museum, University of Zürich.