A01=Dimitris Xygalatas
Anthropology
Author_Dimitris Xygalatas
Category=JBS
Category=JHMC
Dawn of Everything
Early human behaviour
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Gobekli Tepe
Jane Goodall
Prehistory
Sapiens
science
Product details
- ISBN 9781788161039
- Weight: 228g
- Dimensions: 128 x 196mm
- Publication Date: 18 Jan 2024
- Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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A Radio 4 Book of the Week
WINNER OF THE CAROL R. EMBER BOOK PRIZE FOR SCIENTIFIC ANTHROPOLGY
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE
From fire walking to funerals, the hidden science of the rituals that give life meaning
Ritual is perhaps the oldest, and certainly the most enigmatic, thread in human culture. Apparently pointless ceremonies pervade every documented society: from handshakes to hexes, hazings to parades. Before we learned to farm, we were gathering in giant stone temples. And yet, though rituals exist in every culture and can persist nearly unchanged for centuries, their logic has remained a mystery until now.
Today, a fearless new generation of anthropologists is venturing into this shadowy realm. Armed with cutting-edge technology and drawing on discoveries from a huge range of disciplines, they emerge with a powerful new perspective on our place in the world. Join the pathfinding scientist Dimitris Xygalatas on a tour of human culture at its strangest. In coronations, in silent prayer, in fire-walks and in all the bewildering variety of humanity's ritual life, Xygalatas reveals the deep and subtle mechanisms that bind us together.
Dimitris Xygalatas is a pioneering anthropologist and cognitive scientist who runs the experimental anthropology lab at the University of Connecticut. He has been interviewed about his groundbreaking work by the Guardian, The New York Times, the Daily Mail, PBS, the History Channel and many other outlets.
