| Title: |
Healthcare provisioning in evolutionary context |
| Authors: |
Spikins, Penny; Needham, Andrew; Wright, Barry John Debenham; Dytham, Calvin; Hitchens, Gail Elizabeth |
| Publication Year: |
2018 |
| Collection: |
White Rose Research Online (Universities of Leeds, Sheffield & York) |
| Description: |
This research provides a large scale analysis of evidence previously only available as individual reports which is of significance to an understanding of social changes in the Palaeolithic. It also highlights why healthcare provisioning should be considered as a key evolutionary adaptation and so is of interest and importance to those studying cognitive, biological and anatomical changes. We are increasingly recognising many complex ways in which the ecological, social, cognitive and anatomical elements of our human evolutionary past interact and influence each other. One relatively new area of this type of interaction is the potential significance of healthcare provisioning on other realms of human evolution and behaviour. Evidence from skeletal remains for care has traditionally been considered to be subject to some debate. However, whilst precise interpretations remain open to discussion, widespread evidence for healthcare in Palaeolithic contexts is now widely accepted [1] [2] [3]. Healthcare practices are significant in several ways, such as by changing the profile of how injuries impact both group subsistence and individual survival, as well as having a profound impact of social relationships. Here we explore this issue through the interpretation of a large scale survey of evidence for care practices in early, archaic and modern humans. We consider the ecologica l basis for care for the ill and injured, how such care changes through time and in different contexts, the role of care practices in group survival, and the potential influence of increasingly sophisticated medical knowledge on care. Although healthcare provisioning has typically been seen in purely cultural terms, we argue that it is not only a significant and often overlooked element of social relationships throughout the Palaeolithic but is also of evolutionary significance. While other animals provision the ill and injured, none go to such lengths or with such competency as seen in archaic humans, as recent research has started to highlight ... |
| Document Type: |
conference object |
| File Description: |
image |
| Language: |
English |
| Relation: |
https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/137473/1/ESHE_poster_fnl_sml.jpg; Spikins, Penny orcid.org/0000-0002-9174-5168 , Needham, Andrew, Wright, Barry John Debenham orcid.org/0000-0002-8692-6001 et al. (2 more authors) (2018) Healthcare provisioning in evolutionary context. In: 8th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Human Evolution, 13-15 Sep 2018. |
| Availability: |
https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/137473/; https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/137473/1/ESHE_poster_fnl_sml.jpg |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.2F54BF24 |
| Database: |
BASE |
