Paleoanthropology: Two New Offerings

摘要

As the primatological and paleoanthropological literatures continue to proliferate at a rate far above what any sensate individual can reasonably be expected to absorb, succinct overviews of individual fields are increasingly welcome. Just such an overview, of the field of higher primate reproductive behavior, is what Alan Dixson provides in his new volume on Sexual Selection and the Origin of Human Mating Systems-although, as his title suggests, he provides it from a very specific and clearly articulated standpoint, and the whole enterprise is ultimately aimed at "explor[ing] the evolutionary origins of human mating systems, the physical determinants of sexual attractiveness, mate choice, and patterns of copulatory behavior" (p. 1).