Undergraduate Dissertation Abstract

This paper aims to establish the origins of the intrinsically human tendency for visual art, through the exploration of the mechanisms behind the evolution for artistic behaviours in our lineage. The production of varied and sophisticated visual art forms is a unique and universal phenomenon, identifying the archaeological signatures of what we consider the beginnings of symbolic, modern human behaviour. Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach, this dissertation integrates the perspectives of Archaeology, Demography, Evolutionary Psychology and Anthropolgy in an attempt to explain human art as an adaptive behaviour, and expand understanding of how it came to be such a salient feature of humanity. A literature review of evolutionary therories of sexual and group cultural selection, and an analysis of the evidence, allows a well-grounded understanding of the adaptionist theories proposed to explain the onset and mechanisms by which artistic tendency propagated and endured in our species. Demographic factors are found to interact with selection pressures, actively shaping the Pleistocene capacity for producing and understanding visual art culture. Evidence suggests multi-level selection mechanisms may operate, with artistic talent influencing mate-choice via sexual selection within groups, and local variations and styling acting as ethnic markers between groups.