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Skin: A Natural
History
We expose it, cover it, paint it, tattoo it, scar it, and pierce
it. Our intimate connection with the world, skin protects us
while advertising our health, our identity, and our individuality.
This dazzling synthetic overview, written with a poetic touch
and taking many intriguing side excursions, is a complete guidebook
to the pliable covering that makes us who we are. Skin:
A Natural History celebrates the evolution of three unique
attributes of human skin: its naked sweatiness, its distinctive
sepia rainbow of colors, and its remarkable range of decorations.
Jablonski begins with a look at skin's structure and functions
and then tours its three-hundred-million-year evolution, delving
into such topics as the importance of touch and how the skin
reflects and affects emotions. She examines the modern human
obsession with age-related changes in skin, especially wrinkles.
She then turns to skin as a canvas for self-expression, exploring
our use of cosmetics, body paint, tattooing, and scarification.
Skin: A Natural History places the rich cultural canvas
of skin within its broader biological context for the first
time, and the result is a tremendously engaging look at ourselves.
Due out in October 2006, contents and pre-order information
are available at http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10283.html
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Theropithecus:
The Rise and Fall of a Primate Genus
This unique volume provides a comprehensive examination of all
aspects of the biology of the Old World monkey genus, Theropithecus,
which evolved alongside our human ancestors. The authors explore the
fossil history and evolution of the genus, its biogeography, comparative
evolutionary biology and anatomy, and the behavior and socioecology
of the living and extinct representatives of the genus. The
parallels between the evolution of Theropithecus and early hominids are
discussed. There are also two chapters of particular significance which
describe how an innovative and exciting approach to the modelling of
the causes of species extinction can be used with great success. This highly multidisciplinary approach provides a rare and insightful account
of the evolutionary biology of this fascinating and once highly
successful group of primates. Theropithecus will be of interest to researchers
in the fields of primatology, anthropology, palaeontology, and
mammalian behaviour, physiology and anatomy.
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The Natural
History of the Doucs and Snub-nosed Monkeys
The Natural History of the Doucs and Snub-nosed Monkeys provides a
comprehensive introduction to the biology of some of the rarest and
least-known nonhuman primates. Virtually unstudied and unknown until
20 years ago, the doucs and snub-nosed monkeys occupy some of the
most remote habitats of eastern Asia and exhibit some of the most
unusual adaptations of any nonhuman primates. The volume provides
detailed information on these rare Asian primates that will be useful
to practitioners of evolutionary biology, field and laboratory primatology,
systematics, field ecology, and conservation biology.
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The Origin
and Diversification of Language
In The Origin and Diversification of Language a range of distinguished scientists from disciplines as diverse as primatology, archaeology,
neurobiology, and linguistics present the latest evidence on
the origin, spread and diversification of language. The ability of human
beings to communicate practical and symbolic information of great complexity
to one another through the medium of articulate speech is one
of the hallmarks of our species. But as with many other key innovations
in human evolution, the beginnings of language did not leave direct
traces in the fossil record. The exploration of various kinds of indirect
evidence has thus proven essential. Making use of the most recent
theoretical developments and technological breakthroughs, the
contributors to this volume bring a new perspective to questions of language
origins and diversification.
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The First
Americans: The Pleistocene Colonization of the New World
As modern humans spread around the globe, the Americas represented
the final continental frontier. These first colonists were modern
in appearance and technology, but who were they and when did
they arrive? Traditional answers to these questions have come
under increasing scrutiny in the face of new findings from artifacts,
skeletal remains, genes, and languages. The peopling of the
Americas has become one of archeology's most compelling and
contentious subjects, as these new lines of inquiry and evidence
reveal a more complex picture. In The First Americans: The Pleistocene
Colonization of the New World, distinguished scientists from
the fields of archeology, physical anthropology, paleoecology,
genetics, and linguistics assess the latest evidence from Siberia
to Chile and other provocative ideas for how, when, and where
humans entered the Americas.
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Shaping
Primate Evolution
Shaping Primate Evolution is an edited collection of
state-of-the-art papers about how biological form is described
in primate biology, and the consequences of form for function
and behavior. The contributors are highly regarded internationally
recognized scholars in the field of quantitative primate evolutionary
morphology. Each chapter elaborates upon the analysis of the
form-function-behavior triad in a unique and compelling way.
This book is distinctive not only for the diversity of topics
discussed, but also in the range of levels of biological organization
that are addressed from cellular morphometrics to the evolution
of primate ecology. Through the marriage of theory with analytical
applications, this volume is an important reference work for
all those interested in primate functional evolution. |
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