Meat-Eating and Human Evolution

by Craig Stanford (Editor)

When, why, and how early humans began to eat meat are three of the most fundamental unresolved questions in the study of human origins. Before 2.5 million years ago the presence and importance of meat in the hominid diet is unknown. After stone tools appear in the fossil record it seems clear that meat was eaten in increasing quantities, but whether it was obtained through hunting or scavenging remains a topic of intense debate. This book takes a novel and strongly interdisciplinary approach to the role of meat in the early hominid diet, inviting well-known researchers who study the human fossil record, modern hunter-gatherers, and nonhuman primates to contribute chapters to a volume that integrates these three perspectives. Stanford's research has been on the ecology of hunting by wild chimpanzees. Bunn is an archaeologist who has worked on both the fossil record and modern foraging people. This will be a reconsideration of the role of hunting, scavenging, and the uses of meat
in light of recent data and modern evolutionary theory. There is currently no other book, nor has there ever been, that occupies the niche this book will create for itself.

Genres: Anthropology

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

A.k.a. Craig B. Stanford: www.goodreads.com/author/show/2248957...

Reviews

[Kyle · Rating 2 out of 5]

My main issue with this volume is with the lack of transparency concerning the people studied in the ethnographic accounts. For instance, there are some rather remarkable claims about meat-transfer patterns among a "traditional" whaling society in Indonesia. However, whaling in Indonesia was subject to significant development efforts in the 1970's. Somehow, this escapes mention in the essay. In addition, claims made concerning food transfer along "kin" lines still seems to rest on the assumption that "kin=biology." However, if we recognize that fictive kin relationships among humans (which are often not accounted for by genetic analyses in the studies which are based off of old ethnographic accounts of relatedness), these studies beg the question of a biological mechanism of replication for "kin selection" of particular food-transfer patterns. Issues aside, the volume depicts fairly well the state of the controversy (12 years ago) surrounding the relative contribution of meat to the diet of early humans (even if the significance of non-meats receive short shrift here, as it most certainly does) as well as the inability to account for human behavior via simplistic models of exchange.