ABSTRACT
Many of the dimensions of early hominid behaviour remain obscure. In particular, the link between estimates of group size and foraging areas, essential to several arguments about language origins and the elaboration of social intelligence have hardly been explored. The spatial dimension is either ignored (e.g. Dunbar 1993) in the analysis of social and demographic evolution, or is treated qualitatively, using terms such as ‘local’ and ‘distant’, to examine changes in decision-making (e.g. Rolland and Dibble 1990, Andrefsky 1994). Neither are the temporal dimensions of these actions adequately considered. The result is a piecemeal approach to human evolution with little integration of the various multidisciplinary insights. Consequently, each discipline emphasizes its own favoured prime-mover as the appropriate explanation for the timing and direction of change.
