"Falk has taken on the Old Guard, knocked Lucy from her pedestal, and scolded her colleagues for their
trend toward 'splitomania.' Her reasoning is intriguing, her courage admirable."
--Kirkus
"Falk challenges some of her discipline's most sacred cows in this controversial, entertaining account of
the hominid brain. . . . She discusses in fascinating detail the evolution of brain lateralization, and she presents
her compelling arguments with a sense of adventure and humor."
--Library Journal
Publisher Web Site, November, 2004
Summary
When first published in 1992, Braindance presented a revolutionary look at the origins of the human brain. Biological
anthropologist Dean Falk now brings the discussion into the 21st century. In this revised edition with a new preface
and updated information through 2003, she reexamines her groundbreaking research of how the human brain evolved
and reveals how this process continues to impact our species.
Around two million years ago, our earliest hominin ancestors experienced an explosive brain expansion, at least
one million years after they began to walk upright. Rather than linking bipedalism alone with brain expansion,
as previously theorized, Falk's explanation involves climate. She contends that bipedalism allowed our ancestors
to wander farther afield in savannah-like regions, where their brains were subjected to solar heating. Falk and
her colleagues discovered that one hominin line developed a complicated brain-cooling system to combat the destructive
effects of excessive heat. This ability and expanding brain size evolved together, thus producing hominins with
a brain capacity three times greater than their ancestors.
Falk further discusses the evolution of visual skills, right-handedness, language ability, right-brain/left-brain
and male/female differences--and the uniquely human ability to dance. The specifics of how we tapped, toed, and
twisted through the prehistoric "brain dance" form the story line of this book. And what did two million
years of bigger brains produce? The last chapter summarizes Falk's ideas on human cognitive and conscious capacities
for the future.
