Human niche construction

Description

Niche construction is one of the most exciting theories to have emerged from evolutionary science in the last two decades, and is changing the way we think about adaptation. It is based on the simple but powerful idea that through modifying their environments, organisms transform natural selection pressures in ways that can have major evolutionary consequences. The importance of niche construction is nowhere more in evidence than in humans, where it has had profound effects on our genes, cultures and eco-systems. The unique and potent capacity for humans to modify and regulate their world in large part stems from cultural processes, thus making niche construction theory a point of integration between the biological and the social human sciences. This issue constitutes an encouraging start to this multi-disciplinary endeavor, presenting research and review papers across a wide range of issues for a cross-disciplinary audience. These include examining niche construction in the archaeological record; the management of natural resources; the origins of agriculture; the evolution of lactase persistence; behavioural modernity; sociality and altruism; ingroup favouritism and prestige bias; runaway selection and spatial evolutionary dynamics; coordinated farming patterns and cultural representations; property, wealth inequality and reproductive strategies; and the evolution of marriage systems.