rd bk ENCULTURED BRAIN

Our brain and nervous system are our most cultural organs. While virtually all parts of the human body — skeleton, muscles, joints, guts — bear the stamp of our behavioral variety, our nervous system is especially immature at birth, our brain disproportionately small in relation to its adult size and disproportionately susceptible to cultural sculpting. Compared to other mammals, our first year of life finds our brain developing as if in utero, immersed in language, social interaction, and the material world when other species are still shielded by their mother ’ s body from this outside world. This immersion means that ideas about the self and methods of child rearing affect the environmental niche in which our nervous system unfolds, influencing gene expression and developmental processes to the cellular level. By recognizing that much of what makes humans distinctive lies both in the size and specialization and in the dynamic openness of the human nervous system, neuroanthropology places the brain at the center of discussions about human nature and culture.