ANT 104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Homo Sapiens, Neuroplasticity
Document Summary
Behavioral modernity: a suite of behavioral and cognitive traits that distinguishes current homo sapiens from other anatomically modern humans, hominins, and primates. Behavioral variability: many solutions to any singl problem, one solution to different problems, observed (vs inferred) quality of behavior, shared feature of all humans, difference vs other primate behavior. Why is human behavior so widely variable: prolonged juvenility & post-reproductive survival, takes a long time to grow to adults; as adults we survive long after starting having children, neural plasticity, prosociality.