Early Humans Were Prey, Not Predators,

National Geographic News ^ | March 7, 2006 | Anne Minard

[nomorelurker]

Self ping/bump cause I like these threads.

[stuartcr]

True...aren't most carnivore/omnivores killers?

[Question_Assumptions]

The theory is part of a movement to debunk a long-running scientific bias that early humans were warlike. "It developed from a basic Judeo-Christian ideology of man being inherently evil, aggressive, and a natural killer," said Robert W. Sussman, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis.

And this new theory isn't biased toward the idea that early humans were peaceful? It didn't develop from a basic Marxist ideology of man being inherently good, cooperative, and non-individualistic? Anyone want to guess what Mr. Sussman's voting record looks like?

I recommend Lawrence Keeley's War Before Cilvilization. He gives plenty of examples of the academic bias toward the idea that prehistoric humans were peaceful and how it biases research.

[Question_Assumptions]

The Bonobo Chimps, beloved by leftists because they have a wild sex life but are otherwise lazy and useless (like leftists), are about to go extinct.

[Question_Assumptions]

Forget lions and tigers and bears (Oh, my!). Male himpanzees have been observed forming into war parties that march silently, single file, into another group's territory for the sole purpose of finding, murdering, and mutilating males from the other group.

As for lions, they routinely murder all of the baby lions when they take over a group of females, to kill the children of rival males. But I suppose that's not really murder to leftists, who just love the idea of abortion and infanticide.

[discostu]

Yeah it's kind of hard to have a war when you don't have somebody else on your team. Although you do have to figure at some point humans were pretty mellow with non-humans, we just don't have the natural weapons to back up serious agressiveness without tools. But it would be a different story dealing with humans most species seem to be able to find a way to kill their own kind with or without natural weapons.

[chesley]

You know, what most people of the socialist persuasion don't seem to get is that, while they love Darwin, especially as a tool to beat conservative Christians, they don't seem to be able to logically follow where it leads to. Which, by the way is exactly the same place as traditional Christian belief leads, namely the violence inherent in man towards other men.

Competition is NOT between species. There is no way that an antelope can compete with a lion or a baboon. Competition is between the antelopes. Who can get away from the lion. Who can get the most grass, or whatever antelopes eat. Who can get the females and pass his genes on down the generations.

And that's what men fight about, too.

[discostu]

There is some competition between species, especially during times resource of scarcity. Sure the antelope isn't competing with the baboon but it is competing with the zebra and other plains grass eaters. And there is some competion between predator and prey as one tries to get food and the other tries not to be food, but that's usually rather indirect as both animals develop camoflage to not be detected by the other and better sense to detect the other. Then there's competition like you outlined within the species.

There's competition all around, nature red in tooth and claw and all that.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for the pings. "Early Humans were cooperative hunters and fighters" is more accurate. And the ancestors of liberals were always trying to "build consensus" in order to suppress rivals.

[SunkenCiv]

"Both the symposium and the 1968 book represented what was then cutting edge research into the planet's living hunter-gatherer societies."

Cutting edge? A phrase like that just wound up a vital and longlived part of the vernacular because of all those cooperative folks I'm sure. "Og, if you strike the stone like *so*, it makes a better edge."

[SunkenCiv]

Just adding this to the GGG catalog, not sending a general distribution.

The Neandertal Enigma
by James Shreeve

Frayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]

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