Evolution of Social Communication in Primates

How did social communication evolve in primates? In this volume, primatologists, linguists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists and philosophers of science systematically analyze how their specific disciplines demarcate the research questions and methodologies involved in the study of the evolutionary origins of social communication in primates in general, and in humans in particular. In the first part, pioneering primatologists provide cutting edge insights into how the study of communicative behavior portrayed by extant monkeys and great apes can provide information for studies on the origin and evolution of human language. Chapters range from the social and communicative importance of grooming in primate societies, to the multiple levels of primate mother-infant communication, and the significance of gestural and vocal signs produces by monkeys and great apes. The primary focus is how these various types of behavior can be understood as evolutionary precursors to human language. In the second part, we turn to the cognitive sciences, and leading psychologists analyze how facial expressions, Theory of Mind and intentionality, mimesis and imitation evolved in both humans and other primates, and how these traits are necessary prerequisites for human language evolution. In the third part, we turn to the hominin lineage, and anthropologists and archeologists investigate the necessary anatomical and behavioral features required for language to evolve within the hominin and human lineage. In the last part of the book, historians, philosophers of science and moral philosophers address how the epistemological framework associated with language evolution studies has changed over time, and how these conceptual changes affect our understanding of primates in general and humans in particular. Specific emphasis is placed on debates on human uniqueness as well as whether or not we can attribute moral agency to primates.§