ABSTRACT
Much Darwinian natural selection rewired the basic great-ape brain in ways that generate human behavioral and interpersonal capacities and propensities over the last 5 to 8 million years of hominin evolution. Neurosociology is a new evolutionary discipline that compares great-ape brains with those of humans to assess where and to what degree natural selection was rewiring the hominin brain. Much human behavior as it affects, and is affected by, patterns of social organization is the result of a number of changes in the human compared to ape brain, including the larger size of not just the neocortex but also the subcortex where emotions are generated and the great connectivity within and between the neocortex and subcortex. The subcortex and emotions centers evolved first; and once they allowed for more nuanced emotional experiences, these changes would allow for growth of the neocortex to the human measure; and coupled with pre-adaptations and behavioral propensities inherited from the ancestors of great apes, the human capacity for auditory language and symbolic culture could evolve. To understand humans and their creations, sociocultural formations and macrosocieties, evolutionary sociology must engage in neurosociological analysis.
