Preface.............................................................................................................................ix
1 A Puzzling Primate..............................................................................................................1
2 It's Not Our Intelligence......................................................................................................8
3 Lost European Explorers....................................................................................................22
4 How to Make a Cultural Species.........................................................................................34
5 What Are Big Brains For? Or, How Culture Stole Our Guts.....................................................54
6 Why Some People Have Blue Eyes......................................................................................83
7 On the Origin of Faith........................................................................................................97
8 Prestige, Dominance, and Menopause...............................................................................117
9 In-Laws, Incest Taboos, and Rituals..................................................................................140
10 Intergroup Competition Shapes Cultural Evolution...............................................................166
11 Self-Domestication...........................................................................................................185
12 Our Collective Brains........................................................................................................211
13 Communicative Tools with Rules.......................................................................................231
14 Enculturated Brains and Honorable Hormones....................................................................260
15 When We Crossed the Rubicon.........................................................................................280
16 Why Us?.........................................................................................................................296
17 A New Kind of Animal......................................................................................................314
Notes.............................................................................................................................333
References.....................................................................................................................373
Illustration Credits...........................................................................................................429
Index..............................................................................................................................431