Our Kind: Who We Are, Where We Came From, Where We Are Going

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¿Cómo eran las primeras sociedades y los primeros lenguajes humanos? ¿Qué aspectos de la condición humana están inscritos en nuestros genes y cuáles forman parte de nuestra herencia cultural? Este volumen es un riguroso compendio del estado actual de nuestros conocimientos sobre la identidad de "Nuestra especie", en el que el prestigioso antropólogo Marvin Harris aborda interrogantes y enigmas que afectan por igual a toda la humanidad desde una perspectiva «panhumana, biosocial y evolutiva» que, a partir del dato concreto y local, le permite presentar un amplio panorama de la evolución material y cultural del hombre. Preface Acknowledgments In the Beginning The Birth of a Chimera The Rise and Fall of Dawson's Dawn Man Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds The Tree of Life The Enigma of the Little Handy Man The Dawn of Technology Tools for What? Meat African Genesis Revisited Knapper, Butcher, Scavenger, Hunter The Enigma of H. Erectus Heat, Hair, Sweat, and Marathons The Brain Begins to Think Rudimentary Cultures Linguistic Takeoff Primitive Languages? Ape-Signs The Triumph of Sound On Being Neandertal Neandertal's Fate and the Origin of Our Kind Culture Overshadowing Ancestors How Old Are the Races? How Our Skins Got Their Color Why Africa Lags Do the Races Differ in Intelligence? A Different Kind of Selection To Breathe To Drink To Eat Why We Eat Too Much Why We Feast Why We Get Fat Innate Tastes Acquired Tastes One for the Genes Sexual Pleasure Carnal Ignorance And Now for Something Completely Different Why Women Have Perennially Enlarged Breasts Giving and Taking How Many Mates? Genes Against Incest? The Myth of the Great Taboo The Myth of the Procreative Imperative How Many Children? Reproductive Failure The Need to Be Loved Why Homosexuality? Male with Male Female with Female Sperm Versus Egg? Stolen Pleasures Are Men More Aggressive Than Women? Of Tomboy Girls and Penis-at-Twelve Boys Mind, Math, and the Senses Sex, Hunting, and Deadly Force Female Warriors? War and Sexism Why War? Meat, Nuts, and Cannibals A Dissertation on Fatty Meat Game Wars? Hungry Papuans Where Women Rule the Roost Women Up, Women Down Hoes, Plows, and Computers Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men? The Hidden Cost of Machismo Was There Life Before Chiefs? How to Be a Headman Coping with Freeloaders From Headman to Big Man The Birth of the Great Providers Why We Crave Prestige Why We Consume Conspicuously Why Yuppies? From Big Man to Chief Power: Was It Seized or Given? The Threshold of the State The First States Why We Became Religious The Evolution of the Spirit World The Basic Animistic Rituals Divine Exchanges Meat Offerings Human Sacrifice The Gods Who Would Not Eat People The Gods Who Ate People The Nonkilling Religions The Origin of Nonkilling Religions How the Nonkilling Religions Spread A Chinese Puzzle The Future of Belief and Disbelief Did History Repeat Itself? How the Second Earth Began The Evolution of the Second Earth The Pharaohs of the Andes Why the First Earth Conquered the Second Cultural Discontents and the Knowing Mind Will Our Kind Survive? Notes and References Bibliography Index