This work adopts the phlyogenetic perspective which the author has developed to understand the evolutionary origins of play, and then applies the approach to current work in play, cognitive neuroscience, and development in humans. It reviews the history of theoretical ideas as well as factual knowledge about animal play and reviews and evaluates current causal and functional approaches, often isolated from comparative and evolutionary analyses. It also contrasts the life histories and physiology of endotherms with those of reptiles and surveys the diversity of behaviour thought that can be linked to play within these groups. The SRI theory is then extended to the study of "advanced" and complex play, and an argument is made that human creativity is influenced by many of the same factors that were responsible for the development of playfulness mammals, rather than from rationality or general intelligence. This book should be of interest to researchers and graduate students in zoology, ecology and evolutionary biology departments.
