Wired for Culture: the natural history of human cooperation by Mark Pagel

Not an easy book to read, but ultimately rewarding and informative. Pagel draws on anthropology, evolutionary biology, neurology and philosophy to demonstrate how culture has evolved via natural selection of ideas and memes in exactly the same way as genes have evolved. Pagel takes us back to paleo-archaeology, presenting the evidence for physical changes in human physiognomy since hominids left Africa in parallel with the cultural changes. He examines the current scientific evidence with regard to issues such as changes in brain size and physiology, the emergence of cooking, language, agriculture and cities. He reveals our extraordinary evolutionary leap from beings who like most great apes would have loyalty only to people related to them, to the complex networks of altruism, mistrust and self regulation that are necessary for our complex cultures to exist. Densely written requiring concentration and time, but Pagel does repeat information in different chapters in a slightly different framework meaning that complex concepts do become clearer. Worth the effort!