A distinguished anthropologist explores the complex mysteries of human evolution in a study that examines how human ancestors learned to walk upright, arguing that bipedalism--even more than a large brain or a facility with language--played a pivotal role in the development of humankind.

A primatologist examines the evolutionary connection between apes and humans, explaining what the increasingly blurry line between humans and animals means to the social sciences and challenging myths in the areas of infanticide, mating practices, and the origins of human cognition. Reprint. (view table of contents)

Our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, are familiar enough--bright and ornery and promiscuous. But they also kill and eat their kin, in this case the red colobus monkey, which may say something about primate--even hominid--evolution. This book, the first long-term field study of a predator-prey relationship involving two wild primates, documents a six-year investigation into how the risk of predation molds primate society. Taking us to Gombe National Park in Tanzania, a place made famous by Jane Goodall's studies, the book offers a close look at how predation by wild chimpanzees--observable in the park as nowhere else--has influenced the behavior, ecology, and demography of a population of red colobus monkeys. As he explores the effects of chimpanzees' hunting, Craig Stanford also asks why these creatures prey on the red colobus. Because chimpanzees are often used as models of how early humans may have lived, Stanford's findings offer insight into the possible role of early hominids as predators, a little understood aspect of human evolution. The first book-length study in a newly emerging genre of primate field study, Chimpanzee and Red Colobus expands our understanding of not just these two primate societies, but also the evolutionary ecology of predators and prey in general. (view table of contents)

Product Description: When, why, and how early humans began to eat meat are three of the most fundamental unresolved questions in the study of human origins. Before 2.5 million years ago the presence and importance of meat in the hominid diet is unknown...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Argues that the desire for meat, and the eating, hunting, and sharing of meat, spurred the expansion of human brain size that led to the success of the human species, and describes the continuing social impact of the sharing of meat.

Product Description: This monograph presents a detailed report on the social behaviour and ecology of a previously little known species, the capped langur (presbytis pileata). The author observed capped langurs at Madhupur National Park in Bangladesh, where they live in small one-male groups...read more