Primates in History, Myth, Art, and Science by Veracini, Cecilia; Wood, Bernard;

Short description:

Humans views of other primates include myths and legends, accounts of early European naturalists, artistic interpretations, and natural histories, anatomical studies and collections. This book synthesizes all these different perspectives and reveals something about our perceived place in the natural world. 

Long description:

Non-human primates (hereafter just primates) play a special role in human societies, especially in regions where modern humans and primates co-exist. Primates feature in myths and legends and in traditional indigenous knowledge. Explorers observed them in the wild and brought them, at great cost, to Europe. There they were valued as pets and for display, their images featured in art and architecture, and where they were literally teased apart by scientists. The international team of contributors to this book draws these different perspectives together to show how primates helped humans better understand their own place in nature. The book will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students as well scholars in disciplines ranging from anthropology to art history.

Key features:

• Includes contributions from an international team of historians and natural scientists


• Integrates various perspectives and perceptions of non-human primates across time and place


• Summarizes the place of non-human primates in science, art and culture


• Includes rare early illustrations

Table of Contents:

Introduction

SECTION I - Lore and mythology of non-human primates since antiquity

1. South, Southeast, and East Asia

Philip Lutgendorf

2.  Continental Africa

2.1 Ancient Egypt

Cybelle Greenlaw

2.2. North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Cecilia Veracini

3. Madagascar

Alessio Anania & Giuseppe Donati

4. The Americas

Cecilia Veracini & Ana Lucia Camphora

5.  A non-monkey land. Non-human primates in the ancient Near East, from protohistory to the first Islamic caliphate

Marco Masseti

6. Europe from the Bronze Age (mid-3rd millennium BCE) to Greco-Roman times

Marco Masseti & Cecilia Veracini

SECTION II. The Middle Ages and the Age of Discovery in Europe and in the Arab world

7.   Nonhuman primates in Medieval Europe

Cecilia Veracini

8.   Perception and description of non-human primates in the Arab world

Cecilia Veracini & Malak Alghamdi

9.  Non-human primates in the Age of Discovery (15th and 16th centuries)

Cecilia Veracini 

SECTION III. Modern period (until Darwin)

10. Natural history of nonhuman primates in the 17th century: naturalists, missionaries, scientific expeditions and trade

Cecilia Veracini

11. Natural history of Primates in the 18th-19th centuries, before Darwin

Cecilia Veracini 

12. Natural History of Great Apes from Gesner to Huxley

Giulio Barsanti

Section IV. Our Place in Nature

13. The contribution of morphology to Darwin?s understanding of the genealogy of modern humans

Bernard Wood, Ryan McRae, & Rowan M. Sherwood

14. How old and new lines of evidence have contributed to our understanding of the relationships among modern humans and the great apes: 1900-2021

Bernard Wood & Rowan M. Sherwood

Glossary