Primeval Kinship: How Pair-bonding Gave Birth To Human Society

By: Bernard Chapais

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Synopsis: In this account of the dawn of human society, Bernard Chapais shows that our knowledge about kinship and society in nonhuman primates supports, and informs, ideas first put forward by the distinguished social anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss. Chapais contends that only a few evolutionary steps were required to bridge the gap between the kinship structures of our closest relatives-chimpanzees and bonobos-and the human kinship configuration. The pivotal event, the author proposes, was the evolution of sexual alliances. Pair-bonding transformed a social organization loosely based on kinship into one exhibiting the strong hold of kinship and affinity. The implication is that the gap between chimpanzee societies and pre-linguistic hominid societies is narrower than we might think. Primeval Kinship suggests that the study of kinship and social organization can provide a link between social and biological anthropology.