M. Kay Martin has a diversified research, planning, and management background in the academic, public, and private sectors; she has taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has since held executive posts in applied anthropology, environmental research, resource conservation, and other fields. She was the principal author of Female of the Species (1975, Columbia University Press) and has also published ethnohistorical and cross-cultural studies on foraging societies.
Exploring new cross-disciplinary research that links this capacity to critical changes in the organization of the primate brain, [this volume] presents a new synthesis of ideas on human social origins, thereby challenging models that trace our beginnings to traits shaped by ancient hunting economies, or to genetic platforms shared with contemporary apes... [The author] has drawn upon an impressive body of research to provide an exceptionally informed and informative overview respecting the evolution of the human species that will prove to be a valued addition to community and academic library Anthropology collections and supplemental studies lists. Midwest Book Review