Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution, Expanded Edition | Date: 28 April 2011, 02:57
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Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution, Expanded Edition
By Donna L. Hart, Robert W. Sussman
* Publisher: Westview Press
* Number Of Pages: 376
* Publication Date: 2008-07-28
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0813344034
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780813344034
Product Description:
Man the Hunted argues that primates, including the earliest members of the human family, have evolved as the prey of any number of predators, including wild cats and dogs, hyenas, snakes, crocodiles, and even birds. The authors’ studies of predators on monkeys and apes are supplemented here with the observations of naturalists in the field and revealing interpretations of the fossil record. Eyewitness accounts of the “man the hunted” drama being played out even now give vivid evidence of its prehistoric significance.
This provocative view of human evolution suggests that countless adaptations that have allowed our species to survive—from larger brains to speech—stem from a considerably more vulnerable position on the food chain than we might like to imagine. The myth of early humans as fearless hunters dominating the earth obscures our origins as just one of many species that had to be cautious, depend on other group members, communicate danger, and come to terms with being merely one cog in the complex cycle of life.
The expanded edition includes a new chapter that describes the ever-increasing evidence of predation on humans and other primates and claims that the earliest humans were neither hunters nor even the accomplished scavengers that many authorities have claimed.
Contents
Foreword by Ian Tattersall
1. Just Another Item on the Menu
2. Debunking “Man the Hunter”
3. Who’s Eating Whom?
4. Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!
5. Coursing Hyenas and Hungry Dogs
6. Missionary Position
7. Terror from the Sky
8. We Weren’t Just Waiting Around to be Eaten!
9. Gentle Savage or Bloodthirsty Brute?
10. Man the Hunted
11. The Final Word
Summary: From hominids to tribes
Rating: 2
A probably futile attempt at brevity may unbalance this somewhat toward the negative, so I'll say at the outset that I found Man the Hunted rewarding. It is dedicated to being boldly contrarian, and in order to manage that it resorts to straw men and either/or situations where it seems to me both/and would be better. Either hunter or hunted is the primary example: "Instead of Man the Hunter, we contend that Man the Hunted is a more accurate snapshot"(32). The question is why an oversimplified snapshot of any kind. Our species since the early Bronze Age tribes and Iron Age dynasties has waged wars aplenty, one in the middle of the last century that disposed of 50 million people. Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans, in just one small corner of the globe, were enough to send any curious scientist looking for genetic susceptibility to violence. Saying that chimps sometimes act wacky and that we "often act badly, maliciously, cruelly" by choice but not "as bipedal primates" doesn't get us very far. Cooperative, altruistic behavior within a group goes hand in hand with hostility toward other groups. "Sloppy science" and original sin aren't to blame for anthropology's interest in human aggression. Human aggression is.
That puny hominids were hunted we can take for granted, and being hunted does promote social cooperation. Being hunted also raises nightmares and paranoid fear, however, and these can turn preemptively aggressive. Hence group friendliness and outward hostility. We have heard quite a few times of late, "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here," which means "kill them before they kill us." That's not an unusual rhetorical tactic. It was the source of some genocide even on the North American continent, and it still seems to be venerated in the divinely commanded slaughter of Canaanites.
Both hunter and hunted then surely. A more balanced study would have dwelled more on the circumstances that prompt them, and to that end where the advantage lies is crucial. Small hominids in the vicinity of large quadrupeds were naturally prey because they were easily overpowered. Stone-age tribal members armed with spears and other weapons became another story altogether. If genetic preparation for hunting and making war are necessary to explain that, then genetic preparation there was. Marking that shift in tools and the symbol user's social order would have undercut the "Wows" and "Whoas" the authors use to overstate the case.
One example typical of the use of straw men is the brief account of Richard Dawkins and the selfish gene. If the authors are to be believed, Dawkins and squadrons of misled scientists use the selfish gene as an "umbrella explanation for every single thing that animals do-all behavior serves selfish ends" (205). Perhaps in some cases, but there's usually more to it than that. Assigning species change to the genetic level doesn't prevent the cooperation of different genes in an organism or of organisms in packs and societies. The bibliography lists only the one Dawkins book, which dates back to 1975. He's written a bit more than that, coined the word "meme" for packaged cultural influences, and never in any book resembles the biological behaviorist the authors caricature.
Misrepresenting scholars isn't the only popularizing shortcut this book takes. It also falls into non sequiturs, as in arguing that since many animals kill we shouldn't make chimpanzee aggression special. It is valid to say that chimpicide has been overestimated. It is not valid to say that the existence of other aggressive primates makes it insignificant. What actually happened in prehistory will always be in doubt because fossil and midden evidence isn't conclusive, but we do know that hominid life contained both hunting and gathering. We also know that when the advantage shifted, we remained the hunted, but within historical time hunted more by fellow humans than by wolves and grizzlies.
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