Evolution.

  • Society for Experimental Biology (Great Britain)
Date:
1953
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: Evolution. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    467/484 (page 435)
    SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR AND PRIMATE E VOLUTION 437 We therefore conclude that the ascent of man has been due in part to a competition for social position, giving access to the trigonal sphere of social activity in which success was rewarded by a breeding premium, and that at some time in the past, a group of primates, by virtue of their pre-eminent adaptation to this element and consequent cortical enlargement, became pre-adapted for the full exploitation of the properties of the mammalian cortex. We wish to thank F. A. Beach and P. B. Medawar for their most helpful criticism. We are indebted to W. E. Le Gros Clark for recent information on neuro-anatomy and to C. R. Carpenter for additional information on subhuman primate sociology, and to C. White for assistance in con¬ structing Table I. Discussions with L. L. Whyte were also of great assistance. We are indebted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the photo by V. B. Scheffer and K. W. Kenyon of the Alaska fur seal ' rookery'. REFERENCES Allee, W. C. (1939). The Social life of animals. London: Heinemann. Allee, W. С. (1942). Social dominance and subordination among vertebrates. Biol. Symp. 8, 139-63. Alverdes, F. R. (1927). Social Life in the Animal World. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner. Asdell, S. a. (1946). Patterns of Mammalian Reproduction. New York: Comstock Pubi. Bard, P. & Mountcastle, V. B. (1948). Some forebrain mechanisms involved in the expression of rage, etc. Res. Pubi. Ass. Nerv. Ment. Dis. pp. 362-404. Barnett, S. A. (1948). Principles of rodent control. F.A.O. Agrie. Pubi., Wash., 2, 1-20. Barnett, S. A. (1950). Film: Feeding Behaviour of the Rat. From meeting of Society for Experimental Biology, Queen Mary College, London. Beach, F. A. (i947 a). Hormones and mating behaviour in vertebrates. Proc. Laur. Hormone Conf. i, 27-64. Beach, F. A. (1947&). Evolutionary changes in the physiological control of mating behaviour in mammals. Psychol. Rev. 54, 297-315. BoNiN, G. von (1937). Brain weight and body weight of mammals. J. Gen. Psychol. 16, 279-89. BoNiN, G. von (1938). The cerebral cortex of the Cebus monkey, у. Сотр. Neurol. 69, (2) 181. BoNiN, G. von (1941). On encephalometry. J. Сотр. Neurol. 25, 287-316. Brown, S. S. (1942). Factors determining conflict reactions in difficult discrimina¬ tions. y. Exp. Psychol. 31, 272-92. Carpenter, C. R. (1934). A field study of the behaviour and social relations of howling monkeys {Alouatta palliata). Сотр. Psychol. Monogr. 10, 48-168. Carpenter, C. R. (1935). Behaviour of red spider monkeys in Panama, у. Mammal. 16, 171-80. Carpenter, C. R. (1940). A field study in Siam of the behaviour and social relations of the gibbon (Hylobates lar). Сотр. Psychol. Monogr. 16, 5.