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Sat 16 Jun, 2007 11:48 am
From Veggies to Meat: Man-Apes become human
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."
Re: From Veggies to Meat: Man-Apes become Human
coberst wrote:Meat eating has made humans of us.
Shouldn't we be more closely related to the great cats and critters like alligators in that case?
No, because we are not descendants of cats or alligators...we are descendants of apes, and it makes sense that in large part it was the hunger for meat that caused the transition from ape to human; thus, I agree with Coberst.
Actually, Chimpanzees are meat eaters and occasionally go hunting for monkey meat.
"carnivorous appetite" is misleading. We are omnivores. We probably always have been (think bugs). And, primates do have social structure.
We learned to communicate with our groups to hunt, tis true. We also learned to communicate better when we settled down to farms.
what nick said...Chimps will eat meat when they get the chance.
I'm sure other apes will to.
Bugs, lizards, slugs, snails.
I'm sure if a bird crashed into a tree next to a baboon, he'd have a gnaw.
what nick said...Chimps will eat meat when they get the chance.
other apes/monkeys will too.
Bugs, lizards, slugs, snails, eggs,
I'm sure if a bird crashed into a tree next to a baboon, he'd have a gnaw.
Not only that, but they can be cannaibals. Baboons steal the babies of other baboons, I'm sure others do too.
the more advanced humans descended from Bears though...
Bi-Polar Bear wrote:the more advanced humans descended from Bears though...
I was suckled by wolves as a baby.. which probably explains a lot...
Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction and was a distinguished social theorist, and a teacher of anthropology, sociology, and social psychology.
Well, Ernie somehow missed the bothersome fact that apes eat meat too.