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Science 14 November 2003:
Vol. 302. no. 5648, pp. 1160 - 1161
DOI: 10.1126/science.1092116
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Perspectives

PSYCHOLOGY:
Evolution of the Social Brain

Robin Dunbar

Why are monkeys, apes and humans such social animals and how did we get that way? As Dunbar describes in his Perspective, such questions have puzzled primatologists for decades. Two new studies in baboons provide some answers by demonstrating that the tighter the social bonds of female baboons the greater is their reproductive fitness (Silk et al.), and that female baboons are able to simultaneously assess the rank and kinship of other baboon females (Bergman et al.).

The author is at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZB, UK. E-mail: rimd{at}liv.ac.uk

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Sex-Linked Neuroanatomical Basis of Human Altruistic Cooperativeness.
H. Yamasue, O. Abe, M. Suga, H. Yamada, M. A. Rogers, S. Aoki, N. Kato, and K. Kasai (2008)
Cereb Cortex 18, 2331-2340
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)