From Homininity to Humanity: Compassion from the Earliest Archaics to Modern Humans

Spikins, P.A.; Rutherford, H.E.; Needham, A. P.

From Homininity to Humanity: Compassion from the Earliest Archaics to Modern Humans

Download

Name

The_Prehistory_of_Compassion_OA_Images.pdf

Description

visibility:open

Size

435.97 KB

Format

Adobe PDF

Checksum (CRC64NVME)

wkuAhgZhx9c=

Resource type

Journal article

Creator (person)

Spikins, P.A.

Rutherford, H.E.

Needham, A. P.

Date published

November 28, 2013

Abstract

We are increasingly aware of the role of emotions and emotional construction in social relationships. However, despite their significance, there are few constructs or theoretical approaches to the evolution of emotions that can be related to the prehistoric archaeological record. Whilst we frequently discuss how archaic humans might have thought, how they felt might seem to be beyond the realm of academic inquiry. In this paper we aim to open up the debate into the construction of emotion in early prehistory by proposing key stages in the emotional motivation to help others; the feeling of compassion, in human evolution. We review existing literature on compassion and highlight what appear to be particularly significant thresholds in the development of compassion for human social relationships and the evolution of the human mind.