The Biology of Culture. Palaeoanthropology of the genus Homo

How can the extraordinary fate of hominins be explained? Humanity’s close kinship with African great apes has been soundly established today, but our species stands out due to its highly original adaptive features – in terms of locomotion, nutrition, and reproduction – which have enabled its unequalled expansion among vertebrates. The increasingly advanced encephalization of hominins has enabled them to have an ever greater degree of social and technical complexity, which in turn has directly influenced their biological evolution. Understanding human evolution therefore consists in understanding the constant interaction between the biological and the cultural.