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What Makes Us Humans PDF
What Makes Us Humans PDF
ISSUES
With contributions by: Matt Cartmill, Kaye Brown, Katherine S. Pollard, Robert Sussman, Robert M. Seyfarth,
Dorothy L. Cheney, Benjamin Campbell, Sarah Hrdy, Kristen Hawkes, Karen R. Rosenberg, Mary C. Stiner,
Steven L. Kuhn, and Ken Weiss
Today, scholars from numerous and highly diverse fields are not only address- enough to respond to the question of
ing the question of what makes us human, but also seeking input from other dis- what makes us human. Individual per-
ciplines to inform their answers to this fundamental issue. However, for the most spectives include archaeology, behav-
part, evolutionary anthropologists are not particularly prominent in this discus- ioral ecology, human genetics, neuro-
sion, or at least not acknowledged to be. Why is this the case? One reason may anthropology, paleoanthropology,
be that although evolutionary anthropologists are uniquely positioned to provide and primatology. No instructions were
valuable insight on this subject, the responses from any one of us are likely to provided other than to answer the
be as different as the research specializations and intellectual experiences that question in 800 words or less. In addi-
we bring to the table. Indeed, one would anticipate that a paleoanthropologist tion, no one else knew who the other
would not only have different views than a primatologist, geneticist, or behavioral contributors were, to avoid any temp-
ecologist, but from other paleoanthropologists as well. Yet if asked by a theolo- tation to respond in ways that might
gian, psychologist, or political scientist, and perhaps most importantly, by any anticipate another authors com-
curious person outside the walls of academia, do we have a response that most ments. Thus, individual essays were
evolutionary anthropologists could agree on as reflecting our contributions to the not expected to conform to others
understanding of being and becoming human? Our introductory textbooks usu- views in any way and were written
ally begin with this fundamental question, yet seldom produce a concise answer. entirely independently of each other.
Given that conflicting views were not
only expected, but indeed welcomed,
In this series of brief essays, we we conclude with our own commen-
James M. Calcagno is Professor of An- attempt to provide insight into the possi- tary distilling any common ground
thropology and Fellowship Office Director reached in the 10 essays that follow. A
at Loyola University Chicago. His research
bility of a coherent evolutionary anthro-
interests in biological anthropology have pological answer to what makes us priori we reserved the right to regard
ranged from mechanisms of dental reduc- human. We recognize that this simple, some specific points as better than
tion to captive primate behavior. In 2009
and 2011, he co-organized Wiley-Black- basic question is actually tremendously others.
well AAPA symposia directly relating to the complex. Yet if we continue to tout in Although depth and breadth are
question What Makes Us Human? laudable and needed when discus-
Email: jcalcag@luc.edu our classrooms the importance of evolu-
Agustn Fuentes is Professor of Anthropol- tionary anthropology in understanding sing any complex subject, we seek to
ogy at University of Notre Dame. His cur- humanity, it seems unwise to avoid produce a brief answer that almost
rent research includes cooperation and
community in human evolution, ethnopri- direct attempts to answer the question everyone in the field could agree on
matology and multispecies anthropology, of such great interest outside our disci- as hitting key points, and from
evolutionary theory, and interdisciplinary
approaches to human nature(s). Recent pline. Our individual research efforts which curious outsiders to the field
books include Evolution of Human Behav- are, by necessity, more narrowly could easily consume and benefit.
ior Biological Anthropology: Concepts and focused, and may contribute a piece of This may be an impossible task. If
Connections, and Race, Monogamy, and
Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths insight toward the question but not an- so, perhaps greater attention is
About Human Nature. swer it. We propose that evolutionary needed regarding the effectiveness of
Email: afuentes@nd.edu
anthropologists should step outside our our discipline in connecting with a
normative practice to take on this broad much larger audience. We hope that
and societally relevant question. This fo- you will read these essays with an
C 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
V rum is a start. open mind. We are interested to see
DOI 10.1002/evan.21328 whether or not you agree with our
Published online in Wiley Online Library We have assembled 13 distinguished
(wileyonlinelibrary.com). evolutionary anthropologists bold conclusions.
ISSUES 183
A Neuroanthropological Perspective
BENJAMIN CAMPBELL
What makes us human? I argue it to be intertwined with social intelli- Craig1 refers to such an awareness
is a brain that has evolved under gence. In fact, the large size of the as the salient self, a term implying
social pressure to make us self-aware human brain is primarily a function individual self-awareness. However,
individuals who define ourselves by of increased cortical area. Most of other findings indicate that in addi-
what we share with a group of famil- the cortex serves as association tion to integrating sensations from
iar others. While that group of famil- areas, integrating sensory inputs into within the body, the insula integrates
iar others originally extended no far- larger and larger bits of information external social signals as well,
ther than a band or tribe, it has since that can be used by the prefrontal including sound and touch. In the
grown until it now includes, to vary- cortex for decision-making. Hence rhesus macaque, neurons within the
ing degrees, a global human popula- the size of the human cortex means insula respond to species-specific
tion. And with that, the focus on that many different features of other calls, but not other sounds.2 Simi-
what makes us human has shifted individuals and the environment can larly, in humans, the insula responds
from being a member of one group be used to discriminate social situa- to music and language, both learned
as opposed to another to being a tions and help us to choose a practices that are often used to
member of the same species as dis- response, allowing the complex define group membership. These
tinct from other species. social strategies with which we are findings imply that the salient self is
Humans are distinct from our clos- familiar as humans. not simply an individual experience,
est relatives, the great apes, in hav- Compared to social cognition, but includes a larger learned social
ing an extended life span, late matu- potential changes in social emotion dimension. In other words, the sense
ration, and higher reproductive rates. over the course of human evolution of being okay is experienced as the
At the center of these traits lies the have received much less attention. state of both ones body and the
human brain, roughly six times Recent findings indicating that the larger social group.
larger than expected based on body human amygdala, associated with Recent brain imaging studies have
size and three times larger than the emotional saliency, is larger than that shown the insula is activated in the
chimpanzees. It is our large brains of other hominoids, suggest possible case of social exclusion, as well as
that take a long time to develop. At species differences in emotion. social inequality. It appears that our
the same time, our brains allow us Humans may be more, rather than brain anticipates group membership
not only to be more economically less, emotionally sensitive to their based on equality as the default con-
productive as adults and capable of social environment, giving the group a dition, and when this expectation is
subsidizing, as a group, the energy greater impact on our emotional life. violated the insula senses a threat to
demands of our slow-developing off- In this context, the insula, a small bodily well-being. Such a picture is
spring, but to still reproduce at a cortical region between the temporal entirely compatible with our evolu-
higher rate than do any of the extant and frontal lobes, is of particular in- tionary history as hunter-gatherers
hominoids. In other words, the selec- terest because of its role in integrat- dependent on each other for survival.
tive pressures that led to a larger ing emotion and bodily sensation. In sum, humans are inherently
brain centered on group interactions Via the thalamus, the posterior group beings with shared practices
that continue throughout the life insula receives afferents through a and beliefs, a point that social
span. network of unmyelinated fibers from anthropologists have insisted on for
It follows that species-specific fea- different parts of the body, including some time. Such a definition can
tures of the human brain are likely muscles, gut, and skin. These sensa- only be deepened by pointing to the
tions, continually updated, are inte- way in which shared practices and
grated within the posterior insula to beliefs are generated by our brains
Benjamin Campbell is Associate Profes-
sor of Anthropology at University of create an ongoing representation of as a consequence of our evolutionary
Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His recent re- the body. This information is relayed past.
search focuses on neuroanthropology.
His article Male Embodiment and Vital- to the anterior insula, where it is
ity in Subsistence Societies will appear integrated with emotional impulses
in Neuroanthropology, edited by Greg
from the amygdala to create an REFERENCES
Downey and Daniel Lende (MIT Press)
this fall. He is also the co-editor (with ongoing global emotional aware- 1 Craig AD. 2010. The sentient self. Brain
Michael Crawford) of Causes and Conse- ness of bodily homeostasis; that is, Struct Funct 214: 563577.
quences of Human Migration (Cambridge
University Press) due out this fall. whether, right now, as a whole, 2 Remedios R, Logothetis NK, Kayser C. 2009.
An auditory region in the primate insular cortex
Email: campbelb@uwm.edu things are within tolerable limits or responding preferentially to vocal communica-
not. tion sounds. J Neurosci 29:10341045.
188 ISSUES
with other life forms are impedi- nating from diverse research per- between living humans and nonhu-
ments to learning how humans spectives within evolutionary anthro- mans must have emerged in a con-
developed their remarkable facility pology (see Whiten and Erdal1 for a tinuous way over time). Our contrib-
for and dependence on culture. similar and well-reasoned conclu- utors demonstrate our biocultural
Finally, Drs. Cartmill and Brown sion). Our language abilities, social nature eloquently in varied ways,
return to a theme of Weiss, noting interaction, symbolic behavior, and and much of evolutionary anthropol-
that Which of our peculiarities give cultural variation all seem tied to our ogy makes this point, directly or oth-
humanity its unique importance and desire to understand the minds of erwise.
significance? is not an empirical others, for both cooperative and self- These two human attributes have
question, but still an interesting one. ish reasons. It is this cultural and led to our being a hugely influential
They emphasize two key human cognitive reality, lived simultane- part of nature, and how we define
universals: our unique propensity ously through social, linguistic, sym- ourselves can have great consequen-
for imitation and seeing things bolic, and evolutionary contexts, that ces for our entire planet. Are we
from the other fellows perspective. makes humans truly distinct from masters of the universe or something
Importantly, they also remind us that other beings on the planet. We are more nuanced and complicated?
we are the ones who have to make not ignoring the evolutionary sub- Much of academia and the public at
the decisions that will preserve this strate of our own unique cognitive large want answers. Evolutionary
symbiosis or bring it crashing evolution, as Stiner and Kuhn warn anthropologists have a central toolkit
down and us along with it. against, but using comparisons with to bring to bear on this topic. We
So what do we as evolutionary other species to understand differen- have to be ready to participate in
anthropologists tell inquiring minds ces in the totipotentiality of human an open and engaged discussion,
who seek an answer to What makes behavior, as Sussman suggested. regardless of what we think of the
us human? We all certainly can Nonhuman primates surely show particulars of the questions (or
agree that an evolutionary perspec- signs of empathy, cooperation, and answers!). By thinking aloud with
tive is required. Yet ironically, an imitation,2 which would be expected one another, and maybe even going
evolutionary perspective makes the from an evolutionary perspective. beyond the boundaries of our intel-
question much more complicated, However, no other species are so lectual comfort zones, we may be
because at no point in time can we intensely motivated, both coopera- able to enrich our own research
ever point to one generation of tively and competitively, to recon- endeavors and contribute in mean-
humans whose parents were nonhu- struct their entire environment and ingful and lasting ways to how peo-
mans. We are connected to other live their lives based on their con- ple think, not only about becoming
species in many ways. Thus, great cerns with the mind of others. human, but about being human.
caution is urged when trying to dis- Second, and as the direct result of
tinguish us from all other species our first point, we are biocultural
without recognizing the core con- animals.3,4 As Marks5 recently eluci-
tinuities. However, there clearly is dated, no other species has evolved
something distinctive about humans as we have: human evolution is not REFERENCES
today as opposed to other living spe- simply a biological process, but truly 1 Whiten A, Erdal D. 2012. The human socio-
cies. As Rosenberg stated, consid- a biocultural process. Our biology cognitive niche and its evolutionary origins.
cannot be understood outside of the Phil Trans R Soc B 367:21192129.
ering those factors in which we are
2 de Waal FBM, Ferrari PF, editors. 2012.
distinct elucidates significant aspects aforementioned cultural and cogni- The primate mind: built to connect with
of the human adaptation. We pro- tive reality, and culture cannot be other minds. Cambridge: Harvard University
pose that these essays, and our own fully understood without biology. Press.
views, point to two key factors that Thus, our biology and culture are 3 Calcagno JM. 2003. Keeping biological an-
thropology in anthropology, and anthropology
make us human. not just intertwined, but melded to- in biology. Am Anthropol 105:615.
First, humans are characterized by gether, co-existent, inseparable. Evo- 4 Fuentes A. 2012. Race, monogamy and other
a fully developed theory of mind, lution is about both continuities and lies they told you: busting myths about human
nature. Berkeley: University of California Press.
with the ability for flexible language discontinuities. Our biocultural na-
5 Marks J. 2012. The biological myth of human
skills and the concomitant symbolic ture is the core discontinuity that evolution. Contemp Soc Sci 7:139157.
and global reality of culture. This is emerges in our evolutionary history
a common theme among essays ema- (even though this discontinuity C 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
V