The development of language was one of the key factors that enabled the emergence of the modern mind, with its seemingly unlimited powers of imagination, curiosity and invention. It is one of the things that makes us human and, whether gestural, written or spoken, allows us to communicate ideas from the most mundane to the most profound. But while the origins of language have provoked furious debate, those of music- our other major vocal and aural communication system have been oddly neglected, and though many have picked at the puzzle, its evolutionary significance has often been dismissed. 
 In The Singing Neanderthals, Mithen puts the popular notion of music as the language of emotion on a scientific basis, offering a new scenario for a shared musical and linguistic heritage. Structured in two parts, this books offers an array of evidence from the present which is exposed to fossil and archaeological records from the past. And fascinating ground is covered- from emotionally manipulative gibbons, through the neurological basis of music and language to the impact of happiness on helpfulness, and from the role of laughter in parent-child bonding to the impact of bipedalism on the brains and voices of our ancestors. In doing so, Mithen explains why there are such profound similarities and differences between music and language, and why music plays such a big part in all of our lives.

The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Mithen, Steven

Psychology & Counseling

Orion Publishing Group

"A truly pioneering work, perhaps the first by a practicing archaeologist to review coherently the evolution of human cognitive abilities." ―Colin Renfrew, author of Before Civilization and Archaeology and Language Here is an exhilarating intellectual performance, in the tradition of Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind and Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. On the way to showing how the world of our ancient ancestors shaped our modern modular mind, Steven Mithen shares one provocative insight after another as he answers a series of fascinating questions: <ul>
<li>Were our brains hard-wired in the Pleistocene Era by the needs of hunter-gatherers?</li>
<li> When did religious beliefs first emerge?</li>
<li>Why were the first paintings made by humankind so technically accomplished and expressive?</li>
<li>What can the sexual habits of chimpanzees tell us about the prehistory of the modern mind?</li>
</ul> This is the first archaeological account to support the new modular concept of the mind. The concept, promulgated by cognitive and evolutionary psychologists, views the mind as a collection of specialized intelligences or "cognitive domains," somewhat like a Swiss army knife with its specialized blades and tools. Arguing that only archaeology can answer many of the key questions raised by the new concept, Mithen delineates a three-phase sequence for the mind's evolution over six million years―from early Homo in Africa to the ice-age Neanderthals to our modern modular minds. The Prehistory of the Mind is an intriguing and challenging explanation of what it means to be human, a bold new theory about the origins and nature of the mind. 70 illustrations

The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science

History

Ancient Civilizations

Thames&Hudson

"A truly pioneering work, perhaps the first by a practicing archaeologist to review coherently the evolution of human cognitive abilities." ―Colin Renfrew, author of Before Civilization and Archaeology and Language Here is an exhilarating intellectual performance, in the tradition of Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind and Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. On the way to showing how the world of our ancient ancestors shaped our modern modular mind, Steven Mithen shares one provocative insight after another as he answers a series of fascinating questions: <ul>
<li>Were our brains hard-wired in the Pleistocene Era by the needs of hunter-gatherers?</li>
<li>When did religious beliefs first emerge?</li>
<li>Why were the first paintings made by humankind so technically accomplished and expressive?</li>
<li>What can the sexual habits of chimpanzees tell us about the prehistory of the modern mind?</li>
</ul> This is the first archaeological account to support the new modular concept of the mind. The concept, promulgated by cognitive and evolutionary psychologists, views the mind as a collection of specialized intelligences or "cognitive domains," somewhat like a Swiss army knife with its specialized blades and tools. Arguing that only archaeology can answer many of the key questions raised by the new concept, Mithen delineates a three-phase sequence for the mind's evolution over six million years―from early Homo in Africa to the ice-age Neanderthals to our modern modular minds. The Prehistory of the Mind is an intriguing and challenging explanation of what it means to be human, a bold new theory about the origins and nature of the mind. 70 illustrations

Politics & Social Sciences

Archaeology

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.

Thoughtful Foragers: A Study of Prehistoric Decision Making (New Studies in Archaeology)

Anthropology

Cambridge University Press

20,000 B.C., the peak of the last ice age--the atmosphere is heavy with dust, deserts, and glaciers span vast regions, and people, if they survive at all, exist in small, mobile groups, facing the threat of extinction. 
 But these people live on the brink of seismic change--10,000 years of climate shifts culminating in abrupt global warming that will usher in a fundamentally changed human world. After the Ice is the story of this momentous period--one in which a seemingly minor alteration in temperature could presage anything from the spread of lush woodland to the coming of apocalyptic floods--and one in which we find the origins of civilization itself. 
 Drawing on the latest research in archaeology, human genetics, and environmental science, After the Ice takes the reader on a sweeping tour of 15,000 years of human history. Steven Mithen brings this world to life through the eyes of an imaginary modern traveler--John Lubbock, namesake of the great Victorian polymath and author of Prehistoric Times. With Lubbock, readers visit and observe communities and landscapes, experiencing prehistoric life--from aboriginal hunting parties in Tasmania, to the corralling of wild sheep in the central Sahara, to the efforts of the Guila Naquitz people in Oaxaca to combat drought with agricultural innovations. 
 Part history, part science, part time travel, After the Ice offers an evocative and uniquely compelling portrayal of diverse cultures, lives, and landscapes that laid the foundations of the modern world.

After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000-5000 BC

Harvard University Press

20,000 B.C., the peak of the last ice age--the atmosphere is heavy with dust, deserts, and glaciers span vast regions, and people, if they survive at all, exist in small, mobile groups, facing the threat of extinction.
But these people live on the brink of seismic change--10,000 years of climate shifts culminating in abrupt global warming that will usher in a fundamentally changed human world. After the Ice is the story of this momentous period--one in which a seemingly minor alteration in temperature could presage anything from the spread of lush woodland to the coming of apocalyptic floods--and one in which we find the origins of civilization itself. 
Drawing on the latest research in archaeology, human genetics, and environmental science, After the Ice takes the reader on a sweeping tour of 15,000 years of human history. Steven Mithen brings this world to life through the eyes of an imaginary modern traveler--John Lubbock, namesake of the great Victorian polymath and author of Prehistoric Times. With Lubbock, readers visit and observe communities and landscapes, experiencing prehistoric life--from aboriginal hunting parties in Tasmania, to the corralling of wild sheep in the central Sahara, to the efforts of the Guila Naquitz people in Oaxaca to combat drought with agricultural innovations.
Part history, part science, part time travel, After the Ice offers an evocative and uniquely compelling portrayal of diverse cultures, lives, and landscapes that laid the foundations of the modern world.

After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000–5000 BC

The propensity to make music is the most mysterious, wonderful, and neglected feature of humankind: this is where Steven Mithen began, drawing together strands from archaeology, anthropology, psychology, neuroscience--and, of course, musicology--to explain why we are so compelled to make and hear music. But music could not be explained without addressing language, and could not be accounted for without understanding the evolution of the human body and mind. Thus Mithen arrived at the wildly ambitious project that unfolds in this book: an exploration of music as a fundamental aspect of the human condition, encoded into the human genome during the evolutionary history of our species. 
 Music is the language of emotion, common wisdom tells us. In The Singing Neanderthals, Mithen introduces us to the science that might support such popular notions. With equal parts scientific rigor and charm, he marshals current evidence about social organization, tool and weapon technologies, hunting and scavenging strategies, habits and brain capacity of all our hominid ancestors, from australopithecines to Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals to Homo sapiens--and comes up with a scenario for a shared musical and linguistic heritage. Along the way he weaves a tapestry of cognitive and expressive worlds--alive with vocalized sound, communal mimicry, sexual display, and rhythmic movement--of various species. 
 The result is a fascinating work--and a succinct riposte to those, like Steven Pinker, who have dismissed music as a functionless evolutionary byproduct.

The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body

Social Sciences

The propensity to make music is the most mysterious, wonderful, and neglected feature of humankind: this is where Steven Mithen began, drawing together strands from archaeology, anthropology, psychology, neuroscience--and, of course, musicology--to explain why we are so compelled to make and hear music. But music could not be explained without addressing language, and could not be accounted for without understanding the evolution of the human body and mind. Thus Mithen arrived at the wildly ambitious project that unfolds in this book: an exploration of music as a fundamental aspect of the human condition, encoded into the human genome during the evolutionary history of our species.
Music is the language of emotion, common wisdom tells us. In The Singing Neanderthals, Mithen introduces us to the science that might support such popular notions. With equal parts scientific rigor and charm, he marshals current evidence about social organization, tool and weapon technologies, hunting and scavenging strategies, habits and brain capacity of all our hominid ancestors, from australopithecines to Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals to Homo sapiens--and comes up with a scenario for a shared musical and linguistic heritage. Along the way he weaves a tapestry of cognitive and expressive worlds--alive with vocalized sound, communal mimicry, sexual display, and rhythmic movement--of various species. 
The result is a fascinating work--and a succinct riposte to those, like Steven Pinker, who have dismissed music as a functionless evolutionary byproduct.

Arts & Photography

Music

Water is an endangered resource, imperiled by population growth, mega-urbanization, and climate change. Scientists project that by 2050, freshwater shortages will affect 75 percent of the global population. Steven Mithen puts our current crisis in historical context by exploring 10,000 years of humankind’s management of water. Thirst offers cautionary tales of civilizations defeated by the challenges of water control, as well as inspirational stories about how technological ingenuity has sustained communities in hostile environments.
 As in his acclaimed, genre-defying After the Ice and The Singing Neanderthals, Mithen blends archaeology, current science, and ancient literature to give us a rich new picture of how our ancestors lived. Since the Neolithic Revolution, people have recognized water as a commodity and source of economic power and have manipulated its flow. History abounds with examples of ambitious water management projects and hydraulic engineering—from the Sumerians, whose mastery of canal building and irrigation led to their status as the first civilization, to the Nabataeans, who created a watery paradise in the desert city of Petra, to the Khmer, who built a massive inland sea at Angkor, visible from space.
 As we search for modern solutions to today’s water crises, from the American Southwest to China, Mithen also looks for lessons in the past. He suggests that we follow one of the most unheeded pieces of advice to come down from ancient times. In the words of Li Bing, whose waterworks have irrigated the Sichuan Basin since 256 bc, “Work with nature, not against it.”

Thirst: Water and Power in the Ancient World

An examination of our language instinct. Steven Mithen draws on a huge range of sources, from neurological case studies, through child psychology and the communication systems of non-human primates to the latest paleoarchaeological evidence.

The Singing Neanderthals

Phoenix

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mithen, Steven. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Mithen, Steven

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mithen, Steven. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body

The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science

The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science

Thoughtful Foragers: A Study of Prehistoric Decision Making (New Studies in Archaeology)

After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000-5000 BC

After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000–5000 BC

The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body

The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body

Thirst: Water and Power in the Ancient World

The Singing Neanderthals