Primates In History Myth Art And Science

Humans views of other primates include myths and legends, accounts of early European naturalists, artistic interpretations, and natural histories, anatomical studies and collections. This book synthesizes all these different perspectives and reveals something about our perceived place in the natural world.

Non-human primates (hereafter just primates) play a special role in human societies, especially in regions where modern humans and primates co-exist. Primates feature in myths and legends and in traditional indigenous knowledge. Explorers observed them in the wild and brought them, at great cost, to Europe. There they were valued as pets and for display, their images featured in art and architecture, and where they were literally teased apart by scientists. The international team of contributors to this book draws these different perspectives together to show how primates helped humans better understand their own place in nature. The book will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students as well scholars in disciplines ranging from anthropology to art history. Key features: Includes contributions from an international team of historians and natural scientists Integrates various perspectives and perceptions of non-human primates across time and place Summarizes the place of non-human primates in science, art and culture Includes rare early illustrations

The opening of this vital new book centers on a series of graves memorializing baboons killed near Amboseli National Park in Kenya in 2009--a stark image that emphasizes both the close emotional connection between primate researchers and their subjects and the intensely human qualities of the animals. Primates in the Real World goes on to trace primatology’s shift from short-term expeditions designed to help overcome centuries-old myths to the field’s arrival as a recognized science sustained by a complex web of international collaborations. Considering a series of pivotal episodes spanning the twentieth century, Georgina Montgomery shows how individuals both within and outside of the scientific community gradually liberated themselves from primate folklore to create primate science. Achieved largely through a movement from the lab to the field as the primary site of observation, this development reflected an urgent and ultimately extremely productive reassessment of what constitutes "natural" behavior for primates. An important contribution to the history of science and of women’s roles in science, as well as to animal studies and the exploration of the animal-human boundary, Montgomery’s engagingly written narrative provides the general reader with the most accessible overview to date of this enduringly fascinating field of study.

Social behaviour - General characteristics - Human evolution_

A unique, beautifully illustrated exploration of our fascination with our closest primate relatives, and the development of primatology as a discipline This insightful work is a compact but wide-ranging survey of humankind’s relationship to the great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans), from antiquity to the present. Replete with fascinating historical details and anecdotes, it traces twists and turns in our construction of primate knowledge over five hundred years. Chris Herzfeld outlines the development of primatology and its key players and events, including well-known long-term field studies, notably the pioneering work by women such as Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas. Herzfeld seeks to heighten our understanding of great apes and the many ways they are like us. The reader will encounter apes living in human families, painting apes, apes who use American Sign Language, and chimpanzees who travelled in space. A philosopher and historian specializing in primatology, Herzfeld offers thought-provoking insights about our perceptions of apes, as well as the boundary between “human” and “ape” and what it means to be either.

Inspired in part by the famous blue monkeys of Thera, in this original work, the author provides a survey of the diverse cultural attitudes toward monkeys through an examination of the iconographical, physical and textual evidence from several Mediterranean cultures. Contents: 1) Monkeys in Egypt: From the Old Kingdom to the Ptolemaic Period; 2) Monkeys in the Near East; 3) Monkeys in the Bronze Age Aegean; 4) Monkeys in the Greco-Roman World; 5) The Greco-Roman Legacy.

Context and situation always matter in both human and animal lives. Unique insights can be gleaned from conducting scientific studies from within human communities and animal habitats. Inside Science is a novel treatment of this distinctive mode of fieldwork. Robert E. Kohler illuminates these resident practices through close analyses of classic studies: of Trobriand Islanders, Chicago hobos, corner boys in Boston’s North End, Jane Goodall’s chimpanzees of the Gombe Stream Reserve, and more. Intensive firsthand observation; a preference for generalizing from observed particulars, rather than from universal principles; and an ultimate framing of their results in narrative form characterize these inside stories from the field. Resident observing takes place across a range of sciences, from anthropology and sociology to primatology, wildlife ecology, and beyond. What makes it special, Kohler argues, is the direct access it affords scientists to the contexts in which their subjects live and act. These scientists understand their subjects not by keeping their distance but by living among them and engaging with them in ways large and small. This approach also demonstrates how science and everyday life—often assumed to be different and separate ways of knowing—are in fact overlapping aspects of the human experience. This story-driven exploration is perfect for historians, sociologists, and philosophers who want to know how scientists go about making robust knowledge of nature and society.