#368 Ian Tattersall: Human Evolution and Cognition
RECORDED ON JULY 16th, 2020.
Dr. Ian Tattersall is currently curator emeritus in the Division of Anthropology of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He has carried out both primatological and paleontological fieldwork in countries as diverse as Madagascar, Vietnam, Surinam, Yemen, and Mauritius. Trained in archaeology and anthropology at the University of Cambridge, and in geology and vertebrate paleontology at Yale University, Dr. Tattersall has concentrated his research since the 1960s in three main areas: the analysis of the human fossil record and its integration with evolutionary theory, the origin of human cognition, and the study of the ecology and systematics of the lemurs of Madagascar. He is also a prominent interpreter of human paleontology to the public, with numerous trade books to his credit, as well as several articles in Scientific American and the co-editorship of the definitive Encyclopedia of Human Evolution and Prehistory.
In this episode, we talk about the study of the human fossil record, and several aspects of human evolution, with a focus on the genus Homo. We discuss how the Pleistocene conditions might have affected human evolution; the role of culture; and the cognitive revolution. We also refer to what is a modern human, and the evolution of language and symbolism. Finally, we tackle narratives in the paleosciences, like the one about human races and the relative importance of natural selection in comparison with cultural selection.
Time Links:
Studying the human fossil record
The genus Homo, and the Pleistocene conditions
The evolution of culture
Cognitive revolutions
What made us human?
What is a modern human?
Culture, language, and symbolism
Can we know when language started?
How can we know the symbolism of an ancient artifact?
Can we talk about different races or populations of H. sapiens?
Assumptions and narratives in the paleosciences, and evolutionary psychology
Follow Dr. Tattersall’s work!
Follow Dr. Tattersall’s work:
American Museum of Natural History page: https://bit.ly/2WoGyAU
Personal website: http://www.iantattersall.com/
ResearchGate profile: https://bit.ly/2B6dOWh
Amazon page: https://amzn.to/3h5HamZ