![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
x_losEditing Marshall Poe's book for publication. He thought human development occurred in inflexible stages, one of them being the development of the family (and let's not get into how much I disagree with that), and that the human family was unique in its pair-bonding and male-investment. We did some primate research and found a ton of other primates who engage in both practices, so... no. Just no. I've decided, based on a drunken comment from Molly J after we attempted to get wasted enough the Torchwood's writing didn't bother us,
A family, in the cooperative human sense, is defined by bonds more extensive and permanent than can be readily conceived of in the animal kingdom. It unites generations back part memory with the welfare of their living descendents and their far future kin. Look at ancestor worship, notions of heredity and transmittable culture. Our presentation shows that this is not simply a biological or behavioral difference occurring only in humans due to pair-bonding and male-investment. Both of these can be found in several instances among primates.
What differentiates the human family is, I believe, the linguistic ability to conceive of the family as such. This allows responsibilities, knowledge and group identity to be privately articulated, communicated and preserved through oral history. Living with the Idea of the Family as opposed to occasionally performing various behaviors solidifies and defines a social structure that is fundamentally different from the interactions of animals, and exclusively human.
The First Family evidence dates human family groups in modern forms from 3.2 mya, but I’d argue drying together is no sure evidence of having been a behaviorally modern family. There’s still a great deal of debate about the development of language, as spoken language leaves no trace, but most agree it would have come later than this, about 50,000 years ago with the emergence of behavioral modernism. It’s no coincidence that modern behavior such as family building, the development of language and movement out of Africa are roughly contemporaneous. There’s a synergistic effect, or a causal relationship here.
Language as the root of human development. God damn, I'm an English major. Also this proves I've been doing more than flopping about all semester. Not a lot more, admittedly, but something.
A family, in the cooperative human sense, is defined by bonds more extensive and permanent than can be readily conceived of in the animal kingdom. It unites generations back part memory with the welfare of their living descendents and their far future kin. Look at ancestor worship, notions of heredity and transmittable culture. Our presentation shows that this is not simply a biological or behavioral difference occurring only in humans due to pair-bonding and male-investment. Both of these can be found in several instances among primates.
What differentiates the human family is, I believe, the linguistic ability to conceive of the family as such. This allows responsibilities, knowledge and group identity to be privately articulated, communicated and preserved through oral history. Living with the Idea of the Family as opposed to occasionally performing various behaviors solidifies and defines a social structure that is fundamentally different from the interactions of animals, and exclusively human.
The First Family evidence dates human family groups in modern forms from 3.2 mya, but I’d argue drying together is no sure evidence of having been a behaviorally modern family. There’s still a great deal of debate about the development of language, as spoken language leaves no trace, but most agree it would have come later than this, about 50,000 years ago with the emergence of behavioral modernism. It’s no coincidence that modern behavior such as family building, the development of language and movement out of Africa are roughly contemporaneous. There’s a synergistic effect, or a causal relationship here.
Language as the root of human development. God damn, I'm an English major. Also this proves I've been doing more than flopping about all semester. Not a lot more, admittedly, but something.
