The Hunting Apes: Meat Eating and the Origins of Human Behavior

Many people believe that the one trait that most sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom is our intellectual capacity. Determining the evolutionary forces that led to such a qualitative difference between us and our nearest relatives can be viewed as the grail of those who study human evolution. Stanford (Chimpanzee and Red Colobus), an anthropologist at the University of Southern California, does a solid job of summarizing the wealth of often contradictory material bearing on this quest. He concludes that ""the origins of human intelligence are linked to the acquisition of meat, especially through the cognitive capacities necessary for the strategic sharing of meat with fellow group members."" Stanford's thesis is different from those postulated previously because of his focus on the sharing of meat and on the role that nonhunters, particularly females, have played in structuring group cohesion as well as interpersonal relationships. In prehuman groups, he contends, meat became the first commodity, not unlike money today, that could be used to acquire power, traded for sexual relations or bartered for other valuable resources. Stanford's ideas, while controversial, are amply documented by behavioral studies of nonhuman primates, anthropological studies of a number of human societies and archeological studies of early and pre-humans. (Mar.)