Primate Cognition, Anatomical and Behavioral

Modernity Debates, and the Extended Synthesis

Colloquium with Prof. Nathalie Gontier (Lisbon)



Wednesday, 11th May 2016, 4:15 pm, Green Hall

The event is open for everyone interested!




Abstract

At an anatomical level, hominid evolution is characterized by long periods of stasis that are intermitted by rapid changes in morphology, as well as by hybridization events. These patterns are also found in cognitive, cultural and linguistic evolution, where cognitive traits, individual and group behaviors combine to rapidly introduce new sociocultural, communicative and linguistic features. We will investigate how the behavioral and anatomical modernity debate helps to delineate a research program to study the units of primate cognition. And from within an applied evolutionary epistemological approach, we will examine how these units evolve at a variety of levels of the biological hierarchy, by mechanisms currently studied from within an extended evolutionary synthesis.