The “man-apes” of Africa (australopithecines) was first discovered in a 1924 dig. This is considered by anthropologists as being one of the most exciting and enlightening finds of modern anthropology. The man-ape, which was first born perhaps a million years ago, represents the transition point of the transformation from ape to human. From the shuffling vegetarian ape to the upright walking carnivore human, this man-ape creature had the brain one-half the size of the modern human.
Most of what we now consider to be human has resulted from the taste for meat developing in this man-ape creature. Hunting for meat requires hunting in groups, which in turn requires better communication between individuals, which in turn requires better tools and weapons, which in turn requires newer forms of social organization, all of which leads to greater intellectual sophistication.
This greater intellectual sophistication has led this newly evolving species into the development of a much larger brain with the sophisticated reasoning ability of the modern human. Meat eating has made humans of us.
“Man developed away from the apes precisely because he had to hunt meat; and if you want to hunt meat you cannot afford yourself the luxury of baboon behavior.”
As a result of our carnivorous appetite we have developed non-primate social relations; we now regulate sexual behavior and develop families requiring new social harmonies. We now acquire our recognition from others not based upon what we take but from what we give. “Unlike the baboon who gluts himself only on food, man nourishes himself mostly on self-esteem…The hunting band lives in the security of internal peace necessary to get food, of the right of all to partake of what food there is, and of the certainty of the provision of regular sexual partners for all.”
We are now beginning to comprehend the fact that humans are primarily unique because wo/man is a total celebration of itself in distinctive self-expression.
Quotes from “The Birth and Death of Meaning”—Ernest Becker
Unfortunately for Becker’s theory, research done since his book came out in 1971 confirms Jane Goodall’s observations that chimpanzees also hunt for meat, somewhat regularly.
Is there a particular thesis you would like to debate, here?
(I find the contrasts to baboons in your post interesting in that baboons are carnivorous (or, at least, omnivorous as are humans), apparently making the contrast invalid.)
Regardless of the baboons, however, what is your point?
No. Australopithecines had brains the same size of chimp brains-- about 1/3 that of a modern human. It’s almost certain, too, that our upright stance evolved millions of years before our diet shifted from primarily vegetarian to mostly (or significantly) carnivorous.
There is no evidence that “this man-ape” hunted at all. It is much more likely that the bulk of the meat it had in its diet was scavenged. In fact, it’s not likely that australopithecines ate much meat at all.
Maybe. But we can’t know for sure.
Again, we don’t know for sure, but this is almost certainly not true.
Ernest Becker (1924-1974) won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for the “Denial of Death”. He was a distinguished social theorist and popular teacher of anthropology, sociology, and social psychology.
That makes sense since the hypothesis you are putting forth is one that was popular in the 1950s and 60s. But a lot of new things have been learned since then. Paleoanthropology has been revolutionized in the last 20 or 30 years.
I wish to comprehend why humans do the things they do and Becker has written several books regarding this matter. I am starting at the begining of the transformating from primate to human.
I think you have it backwards. Wouldn’t it be the greater intellectual sophitication that led them to realize that they should hunt in groups/communicate more efficiently/needed better tools/et cetera?
Pick up the book “Before the Dawn” by Nicholas Wade. The book focuses mostly on the evolution of our own species, starting about 200k years ago, but it has a few chapters at the beginning summarizing the early evolution of the human line back to its split from the chimp/bonobo line about 5-6M years ago.
Then I’d pick up “Human Natures” by Paul Ehrlich. That might be more along the lines of what you ultimately want to get at, but I’d still read the other book first as it will give you a better overview of what anthropologists generally agree on wrt our evolution from our more ape-like ancestors.
Another good overview of human evolution can be found in “The Complete World of Human Evolution” by Chris Stringer and Peter Andrews.
