Any study of the world, including that of the human, is a move toward and into complexity not away from it. Human action and perception are as evolutionarily relevant as are human genes, bones, and muscles. As an anthropologist interested in behaviour and evolution my focus is the interface of biological histories and systems with the social and cultural lives of humans and the other animals we share close relations with. In this essay influenced by, and following from, Tim Ingold's ‘From Science to Art and Back Again: The Pendulum of an anthropologist’ I chart my history as a scholar via the patterns and changes in the anthropological, primatological, and evolutionary approaches that I have witnessed and have taken part in. I conclude with a call for an integrative anthropology that draws from contemporary evolutionary theory and biology along with a deep connection with the humanities and the arts.
ConkeyM.1997. “Mobilizing Ideologies: Paleolithic ‘Art’, Gender Trouble, and Thinking About Alternatives.” In Women in Human Evolution. L. Hager, 172–207. London: Routledge.
3.
DeaconT.2016. “On Human (Symbolic) Nature: How the Word Became Flesh.” In Embodiment in Evolution and Culture, edited by FuchsT. and TewesC., 129–149. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
4.
Deane-DrummondC., ArnerN., and FuentesA.. 2016. “The Evolution of Morality: A Three-Dimensional Map.” Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences3 (2): 115–151.
5.
Deane-DrummondC., and FuentesA.. 2014. “Human Being and Becoming: Situating Theological Anthropology in Interspecies Relationships in an Evolutionary Context.” Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences1 (3): 251–275. doi:10.1628/10.1628/219597714X14025664303164.
6.
DolhinowP. and FuentesA.. 1999. The Nonhuman Primates.Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company.
7.
DoreK. M., RileyE. P., and FuentesA.. 2017. Ethnoprimatology: A Practical Guide to Research at the Human-Nonhuman Interface. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
8.
FoleyR. A.2016. “Mosaic Evolution and the Pattern of Transitions in the Hominin Lineage.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences371 (1698): 1–14. doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0244.
9.
FuentesA.1999. “Re-evaluating Primate Monogamy.” American Anthropologist100 (4): 890–907.
10.
FuentesA.2000. “Hylobatid Communities: Changing Views on Pair Bonding and Social Organization in Hominoids.” Yearbook of Physical Anthropology43: 33–60.
11.
FuentesA.2002. “Patterns and Trends in Primate Pair Bonds.” International Journal of Primatology23 (4): 953–978.
12.
FuentesA.2009. Evolution of Human Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.
13.
FuentesA.2011. “Social Systems and Socioecology: Understanding the Evolution of Primate Behavior.” In Primates in Perspective 2e, edited by CampbellC., FuentesA.MacKinnonK., BearderS., and StumpfR., 500–511. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
14.
FuentesA.2012. “Ethnoprimatology and the Anthropology of the Human-Primate Interface.” Annual Review of Anthropology41: 101–117. doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145808.
15.
FuentesA.2014. “Human Evolution, Niche Complexity, and the Emergence of a Distinctively Human Imagination.” Time and Mind7 (3): 241–257. doi:10.1080/1751696X.2014.945720.
16.
FuentesA.2015. “Integrative Anthropology and the Human Niche: Toward a Contemporary Approach to Human Evolution.” American Anthropologist117 (2): 302–315. doi:10.1111/aman.12248.
17.
FuentesA.2016. “The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Ethnography, and the Human Niche: Toward an Integrated Anthropology.” Current Anthropology57 (Supplement 13): 13–26. doi:10.1086/685684.
18.
FuentesA.2017a. The Creative Spark: how Imagination Made Humans Exceptional. New York: Dutton.
19.
FuentesA.2017b. “Human Niche, Human Behaviour, Human Nature.” Interface Focus7: 20160136. doi:10.1098/rsfs.2016.0136.
20.
FuentesA.2018. “How Humans and Apes are Different, and why it Matters.” Journal of Anthropological Research74 (2): 151–167. doi:10.1086/697150.
21.
FuentesA., and HockingsK.. 2010. “The Ethnoprimatological Approach in Primatology.” American Journal of Primatology72: 841–847.
22.
FuentesA., and VisalaA.. 2017. Verbs, Bones, and Brains: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Nature. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
23.
FuentesA., and WiessnerP.. 2016. “Reintegrating Anthropology: From Inside Out Current Anthropology 57.” Supplement13: 3–12.
24.
GreeneH. W.2013. Tracks and Shadows: Field Biology as art. Berkeley: University of California Press.
25.
GroveM., and CowardF.. 2008. “From Individual Neurons to Social Brains.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal18: 387–400. doi:10.1017/S0959774308000437.
26.
Imanishi. 2002[1941]. A Japanese View of Nature: The World of Living Things, edited by Pamela J. Asquith. London: Routledge.
27.
IngoldT.2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Dwelling, Livelihood and Skill. London: Routledge.
28.
IngoldT.2004. “Beyond Biology and Culture: The Meaning of Evolution in a Relational World.” Social Anthropology12 (2): 209–221.
29.
IngoldT.2007. “The Trouble with Evolutionary Biology.” Anthropology Today23 (2): 13–17.
30.
IngoldT.2011. Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. Abingdon: Routledge.
31.
IngoldT., and PaalsonG., eds. 2013. Biosocial Becomings: Integrating Social and Biological Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
32.
KisselM., and FuentesA.. 2017a. “A Database of Archaeological Evidence for Representational Behavior.” Evolutionary Anthropology26 (4): 149–150. doi:10.1002/evan.21525.
33.
KisselM., and FuentesA.. 2017b. “Semiosis in the Pleistocene.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal27 (3): 1–16. doi:10.1017/S0959774317000014.
34.
KisselM., and FuentesA.. 2018. “‘Behavioral Modernity’ as a Process, not an Event, in the Human Niche.” Time and Mind11 (2): 163–183. doi:10.1080/1751696X.2018.1469230.
35.
LalandK. N., UllerT., FeldmanM., SterelnyK., MüllerG. B., MoczekA., JabonkaE., and Odling-SmeeJ.. 2014. “Does Evolutionary Theory Need a Rethink? Yes, Urgently.” Nature514 (7521): 161–164.
36.
LalandK. N., UllerT., FeldmanM. W., SterelnyK., MüllerG. B., MoczekA., JablonkaE., and Odling-SmeeJ.. 2015. “The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: its Structure, Assumptions and Predictions.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences282: 20151019. doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.1019.
37.
MarksJ.2012. “The Biological Myth of Human Evolution.” Contemporary Social Science: Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences7 (2): 139–157.
38.
MarksJ.2015. Tales of the ex-Apes: How We Think About Human Evolution. Berkeley: University of California Press.
39.
NaderL.1997. “Sidney W. Mintz Lecture for 1995: Controlling Processes Tracing the Dynamic Components of Power.” Current Anthropology38 (5): 711–738.
40.
RileyE. P.2013. “Contemporary Primatology in Anthropology: Beyond the Epistemological Abyss.” American Anthropologist115 (3): 411–422.
41.
SchutlzE.2009. “Resolving the Anti-Antievolutionism Dilemma: A Brief for Relational Evolutionary Thinking in Anthropology.” American Anthropologist111 (2): 224–237.
StrumS. C., LindburgD. G., and HamburgD., eds. 1999. The new Physical Anthropology: Science, Humanism and Critical Reflection. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
44.
ThierryB.2008. “Primate Sociolecology, the Lost Dream of Ecological Determinism.” Evolutionary Anthropology17: 93–96.
45.
TomaselloM.2014. The Natural History of Human Thinking. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
46.
VisalaA., and FuentesA.. 2015. “Human Nature(s): Human Nature at the Crossroad of Conflicting Interests.” Theology and Science13 (1): 25–42. doi:10.1080/14746700.2014.987993.
47.
Von UexküllJacob.2010. A Foray Into the Worlds of Animals and Humans. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010; orig. ed., 1934.
48.
WakeD. B., and LarsonA.. 1987. “Multidimensional Analysis of an Evolving Lineage.” Science238: 42–48.
49.
WashburnS. L.1951. “The new Physical Anthropology.” Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences13: 298–304.
50.
WashbrunS. L.1973. “The Promise of Primatology.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology38: 177–182.
51.
WhitenA., and ErdalD.. 2012. “The Human Socio-Cognitive Niche and Its Evolutionary Origins.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B367 (1599): 2119–2129.
