Polly Wiessner : The embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/'hoansi Bushmen скачать в хорошем качестве

Polly Wiessner : The embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/'hoansi Bushmen

The Center for the Dynamics of Social Complexity is happy to announce a series of free webinars for Spring 2021 on Human origins and cultural evolution: Celebrating the 150th anniversary of The Descent of Man. http://www.dysoc.org/dom_webinars​ Speaker: Polly Wiessner (Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University) Topic: The embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/'hoansi Bushmen Abstract: The control of fire in the middle paleolithic extended the day, creating effective time for social activities that did not conflict with productive time for economic exploits. Comparison of 174 day and night time conversations among the Ju/'hoansi (!Kung) Bushmen of southern Africa, supplemented by 68 translated texts, suggests that day talk centers on economic matters and criticism to regulate social relations. Night conversations, by contrast, steer away from conflict to entertaining stories about real people and events to capture the workings of entire institutions in a small-scale society with little formal teaching. Night talk plays an important role in remembering others in vast networks, eliciting intergroup understanding and transmitting the 'big picture' of cultural institutions and their variation in practice. Firelit hours provided an important space for the development institutions that created regional regularity of behavior and generated cooperation and trust. Stories whether transmitted in person, via books, or through film continue to play an essential role in all cultures today.