Dunbar’s Number

Dunbar’s Number, the limit on the size of both social groups and personal social networks, has reached iconic status in both the worlds of academia and business, its design underpinning social networking sites. Dunbar joins authors from different fields to explore its conceptual origins and supporting evidence and to reflect on its implications.

`The celebrated Dunbar’s number is now well established as a key measure of human social organisation - but how did it come to be, what are its many ramifications? Full of stimulating ideas, this truly engaging collection is an indispensable way of finding out, its themes as appetising for general readers as students and academics.’ John Gowlett, Professor of Archaeology and Evolutionary Anthropology,The University of Liverpool.

David Shankland (Editor) is Director of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and Honorary Professor of Anthropology at UCL. His interests include Turkey, migration, the study of the Alevis, and the history of anthropology and its sub-disciplines. Contributors:Simon Dein, Robin Dunbar, Clive Gamble, Esther Goody, Matt Grove, Russell A. Hill, Robert A. Foley, Christopher Opie, S.J. Smith, S.J. Underdown, James H. Wade. Robin Dunbar FBA (Contributor) is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford. He has held chairs in biological anthropology (UCL and University of Oxford), Zoology (University of Liverpool) and Psychology (Universities of Liverpool and Oxford). His principal areas of research interest are concerned with social evolution in mammals.