Paper short abstract:

This paper highlights the contributions social anthropology can make to the study of human origins. It expands on the conclusions of my recent Social Anthropology and Human Origins (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Genesis of Symbolic Thought (Cambridge University Press, in press) and suggests areas for interdisciplinary co-operation.

Paper long abstract:

This paper outlines current developments in the study of human origins and highlights the contributions social anthropology can make. While recognizing the biological basis of the field and our dependence on both the biological sciences and archaeology, I argue that these other subjects alone cannot explain everything.

The paper expands on the conclusions of my recent Social Anthropology and Human Origins (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Genesis of Symbolic Thought (Cambridge University Press, in press). The former discusses topics such as the difference between primatological and social anthropological methods, the implications 'Dunbar's number' for prehistoric human settlement patterns, how new findings in genetics open up new possibilities for understanding the diversity of human kinship systems, and what fossils can tell us (and what they can't, but social anthropology can). The latter work looks more specifically at the origins of symbolic thought and language in the African Middle Stone Age. It also examines the implications, for social anthropology, of the notion that all modern humanity had its beginnings in a very small Southern or East African population living only some 70,000 years ago. In that book I argue that symbolic thought lies in the domain of social anthropology, and that our contribution (from comparative ethnography) should be no less than that of other disciplines. In the present paper I further argue that we should work more closely with biological scientists to ensure that neither they, nor we, get things wrong through the bounded concerns of our separate disciplines.