Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T03:19:45.142Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The Evolution of a Human Imagination

from Part I - Theoretical Perspectives on the Imagination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2020

By
Agustín Fuentes
Edited by
Anna Abraham
Anna Abraham
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
Get access

Summary

Humans can see the world around them, imagine how it might be different, and translate those imaginings into reality ‥ or at least try to. This ability plays a significant role in our lineage’s evolutionary success. Meaning, imagination, and hope are as central to the human evolutionary story as are bones, genes, and ecologies. Paleoanthropological, archaeological, and biological data make it abundantly clear that the human lineage, over the last 2 million years, has undergone specific morphological changes alongside less easily measurable, but significant behavioral and cognitive shifts as it has forged and been shaped by a new niche, a highly distinctive way of being in the world – a human niche, a niche in which imagination is a key factor. This chapter offers a brief overview of this history and highlights how developmental processes of the human body and brain evolve as a system that is always in concert with, and mutually co-constitutive of, the linguistic, socially mediated and constructed structures, institutions, and beliefs that make up key aspects of the human niche.

Keywords

Pleistocenehuman nicheimaginationcognitioncultureneurobiologyniche construction
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination , pp. 13 - 29
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abraham, A. (2016). The Imaginative Mind. Human Brain Mapping, 37(11), 4197–4211. doi.org/10.1002/hbm.23300.Google Scholar
Ackermann, R. R., Mackay, A., and Arnold, M. L. (2015). The Hybrid Origin of “Modern” Humans. Evolutionary Biology, 43, 1–11.Google Scholar
Anton, S. C., Potts, R., and Aiello, L. C. (2014). Evolution of Early Homo: An Integrated Biological Perspective. Science, 345(6192), 45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arbib, M. A. (2011). From Mirror Neurons to Complex Imitation in the Evolution of Language and Tool Use. Annual Review of Anthropology, 40, 257–273.Google Scholar
Barnard, A. (2012). Genesis of Symbolic Thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bloch, M. (2016). Imagination from the Outside and from the Inside. Current Anthropology, 57(Supplement 13), S80–S87.Google Scholar
Brooks, A. S., Yellen, J. E., Potts, R., et al. (2018). Long-Distance Stone Transport and Pigment Use in the Earliest Middle Stone Age. Science, 360(6384), 90–94.Google Scholar
Coward, F. and Grove, M. (2011). Beyond the Tools: Social Innovation and Hominin Evolution. PaleoAnthropology, 2011, 111−129. doi:10.4207/PA.2011.ART46Google Scholar
Deacon, T. (1997). The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain. London, UK: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Deacon, T.(2016). On Human (Symbolic) Nature: How the Word Became Flesh. In Fuchs, T. and Tewes, C. (eds.), Embodiment in Evolution and Culture. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 129–149.Google Scholar
Downey, G., and Lende, D. H. (2012). Evolution and the Brain. In Lende, D. H. and Downey, G. (eds.), The Encultured Brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 103–138.Google Scholar
Fogarty, L., Creanza, N., and Feldman, M. W. (2015). Cultural Evolutionary Perspectives on Creativity and Human Innovation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 30(12), 736–754.Google Scholar
Foley, R. A. (2016). Mosaic Evolution and the Pattern of Transitions in the Hominin Lineage. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 371 , 20150244.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foote, A. D., Nagurjan, V., Ávila-Arcos, M. C., et al. (2016). Genome-Culture Coevolution Promote Rapid Divergence of Killer Whale Ecotypes. Nature Communications, 7, 11693.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fuentes, A. (2014). Human Evolution, Niche Complexity, and the Emergence of a Distinctively Human Imagination. Time and Mind, 7(3), 241–257.Google Scholar
Fuentes, A.(2015). Integrative Anthropology and the Human Niche: Toward a Contemporary Approach to Human Evolution. American Anthropologist, 117(2), 302–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuentes, A.(2016). The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Ethnography, and the Human Niche: Toward an Integrated Anthropology. Current Anthropology, 57(Supplement 13), 13–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuentes, A.(2017a). The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional. New York, NY: Dutton/Penguin.Google Scholar
Fuentes, A.(2017b). Human Niche, Human Behaviour, Human Nature. Interface Focus, 7, 20160136.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fuentes, A.(2018). How Humans and Apes Are Different, and Why It Matters. Journal of Anthropological Research, 74(2), 151–167.Google Scholar
Fuentes, A.(2019). Why We Believe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Grove, M., and Coward, F. (2008). From Individual Neurons to Social Brains. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 18, 387–400.Google Scholar
Harmand, S., Lewis, J. E., Feibel, C. S., et al. (2015). 3.3-Million-Year-Old Stone Tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya. Nature, 521, 310–315.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hecht, E. E., Gutman, D. A., Khreisheh, N., et al. (2014). Acquisition of Paleolithic Tool-Making Abilities Involves Structural Remodeling to Inferior Fronto-Parietal Regions. Brain Structure and Function, 220, 2315–2331.Google Scholar
Hiscock, P. (2014). Learning in Lithic Landscapes: A Reconsideration of the Hominid “Toolmaking” Niche. Biological Theory, 9(1), 27–41.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. (1998). Creative Thought: A Long-Term Process. In Mithen, S. (ed.), Creativity in Human Evolution and Prehistory. London, UK: Routledge, 61–77.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, G. E. (1957). Concluding Remarks. Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on Quantitative Biology, 22, 415–427.Google Scholar
Ingold, T. (2000). The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ingold, T.(2004). Beyond Biology and Culture: The Meaning of Evolution in a Relational World. Social Anthropology, 12(2), 209–221.Google Scholar
Ingold, T., and Paalson, G. (eds.) (2013). Biosocial Becomings: Integrating Social and Biological Anthropology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kissel, M. and Fuentes, A. (2017a). Semiosis in the Pleistocene. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 27(3), 1–16.Google Scholar
Kissel, M. and Fuentes, A.(2017b). A Database of Archaeological Evidence for Representational Behavior. Evolutionary Anthropology, 26(4), 1490150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kissel, M. and Fuentes, A.(2018). “Behavioral Modernity” as a Process, not an Event, in the Human Niche. Time and Mind, 11(2), 163–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laland, K. N. (2017). Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made the Human Mind. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Martinez, I., Rosa, M., Arsuaga, J. L., et al. (2004). Auditory Capacities in Middle Pleistocene Humans from the Sierra de Atapuerca in Spain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101(27), 9976–9981.Google Scholar
Montagu, A. (1965). The Human Revolution. New York, NY: Bantam Books.Google Scholar
Peirce, C. (1998). The Essential Peirce. Volume 2. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Pope, M. I., and Roberts, M. B. (2005). Observations on the Relationship Between Individuals and Artefact Scatters at the Middle Palaeolithic Site of Boxgrove, West Sussex. In Gamble, C. and Porr, M. (eds.), The Hominid Individual in Context: Archaeological Investigations of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic Landscapes. London, UK: Routledge, 81–97.Google Scholar
Ramsey, G. (2013). Culture in Humans and Other Animals. Biology and Philosophy, 28, 457–479.Google Scholar
Reader, S. M., and Laland, K. N. (2003). Animal Innovation. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sanz, C. M., Call, J., and Boesch, C. (2014). Tool Use in Animals: Cognition and Ecology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Scerri, E., Thomas, M. G., Manica, A., et al. (2018). Did Our Species Evolve in Subdivided Populations across Africa, and Why Does It Matter? Trends in Ecology & Evolution. doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2018.05.005.Google Scholar
Sherwood, C. C., and Gomez-Robles, A. (2017). Brain Plasticity and Human Evolution. Annual Review of Anthropology, 2017(46), 399–419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spikins, P. (2015). How Compassion Made us Human. Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword Press.Google Scholar
Staes, N., Sherwood, C. C., Wright, K., et al. (2017). FOXP2 Variation in Great Ape Populations Offers Insight into the Evolution of Communication Skills. Scientific Reports, 7(1), 16866.Google Scholar
Steffen, W., Grinevald, J., Crutzen, P., and McNeil, J. (2011). The Anthropocene: Conceptual and Historical Perspectives. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 369, 842–867.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sterelny, K. (2012). The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sterelny, K. (2017). Artifacts, Symbols, Thoughts. Biological Theory, 12:236–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sterelny, K., and Hiscock, P. (2014). Symbols, Signals, and the Archaeological Record. Biological Theory, 9(1), 1–3.Google Scholar
Stevenson, L. (2003). Twelve Conceptions of Imagination. The British Journal of Aesthetics, 43(3), 238–259.Google Scholar
Stout, D., and Chaminade, T. (2012). Stone Tools, Language and the Brain in Human Evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 367(1585), 75–87.Google Scholar
Stout, D., Hecht, E., Khreisheh, N., et al. (2015). Cognitive Demands of Lower Paleolithic Toolmaking. PLoS ONE, 10(4), e0121804.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2014). The Natural History of Human Thinking. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Vale, G. L., Dean, L., and Whiten, A. (2016). Culture in Nonhuman Animals. In Callen, H. (ed.), Wiley International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Wadley, L. (2013). Recognizing Complex Cognition through Innovative Technology in Stone Age and Palaeolithic Sites. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 23(2), 163–183.Google Scholar
Wake, D. B., Hadley, E. A., and Ackerly, D. (2009). Biogeography, Changing Climates, and Niche Evolution. PNAS, 106(2), 19631–19636.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whiten, A., and Erdal, D. (2012). The Human Socio-Cognitive Niche and its Evolutionary Origins. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367, 2119–2129.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whiten, A., Ayala, F. J., Feldman, M. W., and Laland, K. N. (2017). The Extension of Biology through Culture. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114(30), 7775–7781.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whiten, A., Hinde, R. A., Stringer, C. B., and Laland, K. N. (2012). Culture Evolves. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wood, B. (2010). Reconstructing Human Evolution: Achievements, Challenges, and Opportunities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(S2), 8902–8909.Google Scholar
Zeder, M. A. (2017). Domestication as a Model System for the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Interface Focus, 7, 20160133.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×