From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neuroanthropology is the study of culture and
the brain. This field explores how new findings in the brain
sciences help us understand the interactive effects of culture and
biology on human development and behavior. In one way or another,
neuroanthropologists ground their research and explanations in how
the human brain develops, how it is structured and how it functions
within the genetic and cultural limits of its biology (see Biogenetic Structuralism and related website).
“Neuroanthropology” is a broad term, intended to embrace all
dimensions of human neural activity, including emotion, perception,
cognitive, motor control, skill acquisition, and a range of other
issues. Interests include the evolution of the hominid brain, cultural development and the
brain, the biochemistry of the brain and alternative
states of consciousness, human universals, how culture influences
perception, how the brain structures experience, and so forth. In
comparison to previous ways of doing psychological or cognitive
anthropology, it remains open and heterogeneous, recognizing that
not all brain systems function in the same way, so culture will not
take hold of them in identical fashion.
Further
reading
- Arbib,
Michael A. (1989) The Metaphorical Brain 2: Neural Networks
and Beyond. New York: Wiley.
- Calvin,
William H. (1989) The Cerebral Symphony. New York:
Bantam.
- Deacon, Terrence W. (1997) The Symbolic Species. New
York: Norton.
- Donald,
Merlin (1991) Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in
the Evolution of Culture and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
- Falk, Dean (1992)
Braindance. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
- Geary, David G. (2005) The Origin of Mind: Evolution of
Brain, Cognition, and General Intelligence. Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association.
- Harris, M., ed. (2007) Ways of Knowing: New Approaches in
the Anthropology of Experience and Learning. Oxford:
Berghahn.
- Jerison, H.J. and I. Jerison (1988) Intelligence and
Evolutionary Biology. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
- Laughlin,
C.D., John McManus and E.G. d'Aquili (1990) Brain,
Symbol and Experience: Toward a Neurophenomenology of Human
Consciousness. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Marcus, Joseph A. (1997) "Neuroanthropology." In: Barfield,
Thomas (ed.) The Dictionary of Anthropology, pp. 340-342.
Malden, MA: Blackwell.
- Quartz, S.R. and T.J Sejnowzki (2003) Liars, Lovers,
and Heroes: What the New Brain Science Reveals About How We Become
Who We Are. New York: Harper Paperbacks.
- Skoyles, John R. and Sagan, Dorion (2002) Up from Dragons:
The Evolution of Human Intelligence." McGraw-Hill, New York, ISBN
0-07-137825-1
- Winkelman, Michael (2000) Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of
Consciousness and Healing. Westport, CT: Bergin &
Garvey.
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