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Evolving Humans on the Menu
Ant writes "BBC News is reporting that a popular view of our ancient ancestors as hunters who conquered all in their way could be incorrect. This was according to researchers who told a major United States (U.S.) science conference. They argued that early humans were on the menu for predatory beasts. From the article: 'This may have driven humans to evolve increased levels of co-operation, according to their theory. Despite humankind's considerable capacity for war and violence, we/humans are highly sociable animals, according to anthropologists.'"
Someone mentioned to me several years ago, that nearly all human societies have customs for disposing of dead bodies that would tend to prevent predators from knowing that humans were something to eat. Burying someone six feet deep, for example, makes it rather unlikely that a lion or a bear would smell the body and dig it up.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Exactly. For example, small cats are efficient predators but are also hunted by coyotes.
I also question the blanket assumption that humans are unique in our cooperativeness. Baboons collaborate against leopards, and macaques and bonobos form tight social groups.
Further, it's not clear how valuable hunting was. Contemporary hunter-gatherers get more calories, more regularly, from gathering than from hunting. Raising the question, were the first weapons primarily defensive?
Stuff was bigger back then. We were smaller, and weve always been naked squishy monkeys. Something interesting along these lines, the universal dragon myth, in which similar creatures (dragons) exist independently in different cultures (asian, european, even native american), is thought to stem from an amalgamation of early human predators left over in some sort of instinctive memory. Lions' jaws and claws, body of a snake, wings of an eagle (yes, eagles were big enough to prey on humans), and fire.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Will Durant (I think) suggested civilization began when, instead of eating our vanquished enemy, we enslaved him. AANAAnthropologist but what are the preditors back before agriculture? My guess, the big cats. My other guess, tribalism was probably based on banding together for protection against the really big hungry guy - who was a fellow early human.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
It would be clearer to say that humans were not always apex predators. Many predators are themselves the prey of other creatures, and it is not exactly revolutionary to suggest that this may have been the case for humans and our proto-human ancestors for a long time.
May have been the case??? Make no mistake about it there are still critters on this earth that look at a human and think "mmmmmm... FOOD!" Well knonw examples are polarbears tigers and bullsharks. All of these animals regularly hunt humans for food. When I got my weapons license the instructor in the class on hunting ethics started out by telling us that there are three valid reasons to kill an animal:
1) The animal is sick so you kill it to prevent the disease from spreading.
2) You want to eat the animal.
3) The animal wants to eat you.
That list may seem a bit funny at first glance but basically those rules are as true today as they were during the stoneage.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Not to be harsh, but this theory is around since at least middle '80s. They taught it to me at primary school, here in Italy.
42.
" The Pleistocene Holocene transition took place about 11,000 years ago and caused the extinction of a large number of animal species including mammoths, mastodons and ground sloths. The Holocene looked very different from the Pleistocene."
Well, according to Leo Strauss: "... a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat; and following Machiavelli, ... if no external threat exists, then one has to be manufactured."
I believe Napoleon said something along the same lines - and at least, acted in that fashion.
My, that was a yummy potato!
but hunting is considered rather instrumental in our evolution as a species.
Analysis of prehistoric living sites (including prehistoric shit, a rather invaluable source of information concerning what an animal eats) pretty much conclusively shows that the average human diet was 85%-90% fruits, vegetables, and roots. Of the other 10%-15%, a large chunk of that protein came from insects. The 'mighty hunter' scenario has been consistently debunked for decades, yet Joe Public is still enamored of the idea that our ancestors ran about the plains, taking on mastodons with fire-hardened sticks.
Fact is, most of our protein - what little of it there was - came from insects, grubs, eggs, lizards and frogs, scavenged kills from other predators, and in coastal areas creatures like turtles, crabs, and occasionally fish. When humans did hunt larger creatures they sure as hell didn't take on large animals with spears; they used brush traps, cliff runs, and uncontrolled large-scale burns to kill *entire herds*. Lacking any sort of proper storage technology and rarely knowing how to smoke/salt meat for long-term use, these occasional whole-sale slaughters generally wasted 99% of the animals they killed.
Contrary to the popular myth which still makes the rounds, humans sucked at hunting. They were, however, premiere gatherers and used their large brains to keep track of what was good to eat, and when, and where it could be found. Their social organization also made it difficult for other, more efficient predators to take them down, since attacking one human generally meant taking on the entire tribe, a dangerous proposition when easier prey was usually abundant. While humans were lousy hunters, a tribe of 20 or 30 armed with pointy sticks was more than sufficient for convincing even a pride of lions that perhaps the herd of deer in the next valley over was a better bet.
The only branch of humanity that was any good at all at hunting was the much-maligned Neanderthal. In complete opposition to our own branch of the species, Neanderthals got 90% of their calories from meat and only 10% from vegetables, fruits or roots. Neanderthals were excellent hunters, although it was a full-time and dangerous occupation as we can see from just how often they were injured (taking a look at an adult Neanderthals bones and the numerous breaks they suffered shows you just how bloody tough they were). But then Neanderthals, unlike h. sapiens, were much better adadpted to hunting; they were far, far stronger than any human being (the average female could easily kill Arnie in his prime with just one well-aimed punch), had much thicker bones, and apparently healed more quickly than our kind did (or does). They could take and shake off punishment that would instantly put any one of us in the grave.
Although it's certainly more heroic to think that cooperative hunting had something to do with our brain development, it's far more likely that it's a combination of ever-more-efficient gathering techniques and cooperative *defense* against real predators that did the trick. Smarter, more social human beings were better at both of these activities than dumber, asocial ones. And in a world full of predators looking for an easy kill, humans - with fragile bodies, the inability to outrun just about anything on four legs, and no natural weapons - were hard-pressed to come up with some other survival strategy to keep from becoming lunch. It turned out that brains and sociability were adequate substitutes.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
There is also some evidence, I believe, that far from being repurposed wolves dogs are the descendants of a scavenging ancestor. By disposing of rubbish, dogs helped the evolution of stable human settlements - because without dogs, primitive man had to move on before the surroundings got too smelly. At a later stage dogs were tamed, and all of a sudden the human race had two forms of projected power to use against predators - ballistic weapons, and dogs. The rest is history (or herstory if you believe that women create civilisations and men try to destroy them)
Pining for the fjords
According to some show on PBS/Discovery/BBC not that long ago (sorry, don't recall which or what show), they made the seemingly plausible statement that dragon myths were supported by the findings of Cave Bear skeletons, at least for the European dragon myths. These skeletons must have looked ferocious to those that found them after their extinction 15000 years ago, being up to 20 feet long. They certainly bore little resemblance to the current bear population in Europe.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I haven't heard of this explanation, and I took several biology and anthropology courses in college.
The problem with this explanation, and with the "man the hunter" mythology in general, is that it's a "just so" story. It may make intuitive sense, but the data just isn't there to support such a hypothesis. To put another way, I can come up with an equally plausible account of the facts/adaptations you mentioned, and in the end, there's no way to choose between competing explanations. One major problem with "man the hunter" is it's quite difficult to falsify its claims (meaning, of course, it can't be a scientific theory).
But as long as we're in the realm of speculation, the explanation of why we can run long distances makes no sense. Humans evolved as an edge species, on the border of the jungle. If an animal could outrun us, it would probably duck into the underbrush, climb a tree, or just disappear in the darkness, and it wouldn't matter that the pursuing human could run for another mile before feeling tired.