Evolution on the Meat-Sex Exchange

New York Times ^ | August 28, 2003 | MEREDITH F. SMALL

[presidio9]

Humans and apes separated about six million years ago, and ever since then humans have been careering down an evolutionary path all their own. Lucky for us, bits of bones dropped along the way became fossilized, and these remains tell much about the physical evolution of the creatures that eventually became modern humans.

Harder to follow is the path of our behavior. No one really knows what early humans acted like, who they interacted with or what kind of social groups they preferred, and so the lifestyle of our ancient ancestors is only a guess. This part of our history is so up for grabs that there is lots of room for speculation by polymaths curious enough to read the mountain of anthropological literature and piece together a credible story of human behavioral evolution.

And why not? Anthropology has a long tradition of letting others look at the data. Authors like Robert Ardrey, Elaine Morgan, Carl Sagan and Jared Diamond, among many others, have all attempted to figure out where we came from and how we did it. Because no one could possibly be right — we have no film from the Pleistocene and no written records of our ancient past to confirm or refute anything anyone says — each account has merit and is worthy of discussion.

Leonard Shlain, a surgeon, is the latest to jump in with "Sex, Time and Power," in which he makes a case for concentrating on women and their need for the mineral iron as the key to understanding our past. Women need high stores of iron, Dr. Shlain says, because they menstruate every month, become pregnant and nurse. In our evolutionary past the best way to restore depleted iron was to eat meat. But women were probably not hunters, and so they must have manipulated men with sexual favors to bringing home a blood-soaked dinner. This manipulative move, Dr. Shlain suggests, then set into motion just about every aspect of human behavior.

The reproductive biology of women supposedly supports his account: Menstruation, with a blood loss excessive compared with that of other mammals, makes women crave meat. Women have also lost the usual advertisement of fertility — heat — and are always open to sex. Men, who have high levels of testosterone, which increases their sex drive, are then lured into hunting and sharing meat by the promise of continuous sex from these menstruating, sexy women. The trade is meat for sex and everyone wins as genes are passed down by the iron-rich women who produce healthy, intelligent babies.

The female lust for meat, Dr. Shlain suggests, is responsible for the evolution of much of human behavior, including intimate relations between men and women, foresight and puzzle solving, complex social interactions, different psychological moods between men and women, and any number of human traits that we now see in the best and worst of us.

Dr. Shlain's account is supported by endless references to every human biological and behavioral feature that has ever been written about; he certainly has an exhaustive reading list. But everything he suggests, except for the specific detail of a need for iron, has been said before, which gives his account an old-fashioned feel. Meat for sex? We've been hearing about this since the 1960's. Men like sex and woman just want to make babies? Hasn't this been a party line since the 1950's? Even Dr. Shlain's enthusiasm for women as the prime movers of humanity (but thanks for thinking of us) comes off as dated given that female anthropologists like Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Helen Fisher, Alison Jolly and many others have been writing about this for years.

Dr. Shlain should know that the feminist revolution reached into anthropology more than 30 years ago and no one now doubts that women were big-time players in evolution. To suggest that women should have their own genus name, Gyno sapiens, seems not only dated, but a bit silly.

There are also some telling mistakes that undermine his thesis. For example, the human brain did not suddenly expand 150,000 years ago with the appearance of modern humans, but about 1.5 million years ago, when brain size doubled for the first time and then continued to do so. The idea that menstruating women figured out the monthly calendar is also off because women without birth control who are pregnant or lactating rarely have periods, and in any case, many cultures do not follow a monthly calendar. Dr. Shlain also seems to believe that there is a purposeful trajectory of human evolution that landed us here as masters of the universe. Evolution is a much more zigzagging, messy process, and our history, like that of all animals, is fraught with mistakes and dead ends. Thinking that human evolution was guided along by women toward some clean and neat end is just wrong.

Dr. Shlain also pushes too far when he waxes lyrical from iron to the development of language, homosexuality, death, laughter, art, incest, fatherhood and patriarchy. Yes, human behavior is complex, but is it really necessary to speculate on every single human behavior and assume they all make evolutionary sense? In the end, the message about iron, which is an interesting tidbit, is lost in Dr. Shlain's need to impress the reader with his wide-reaching intellect.

[Aracelis]

Meat-eating female ping!

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP

[ChewedGum]

The female lust for meat, Dr. Shlain suggests, is responsible for the evolution of much of human behavior, including intimate relations between men and women, foresight and puzzle solving, complex social interactions, different psychological moods between men and women, and any number of human traits that we now see in the best and worst of us.

Umm, interesting idea I guess. I was kind of thinking that it was the male's lust which led to intimate relations. (Silly me!) The interesting thing about such a hypothesis is that there is no evidence against it so it may stand forever. (There is no evidence for it either, it is all speculation, but that doesn't seem to matter much these days.)

Gum

[shrinkermd]

Interesting post. The real problem is how humans organize. Until comparatively recently we lived in very small groups and extended families. The rise of cities and nations of millions poses problems for which we are not properly prepared to deal with.

[rolling_stone]

I alaways thought it was gold women were after, stupid me, iron is so much cheaper, I can't wait to buy some iron supplement and see how that works to woo the ladies...

[KellyAdmirer]

Humans and apes separated about six million years ago

Someone at some point is going to come along with a meteor theory to explain this, I just know it.

[FormerLib]

Can we surmise from this that vegetarian women are less likely to produce intelligent babies? Anyone want to research how many Palm Beach voters had veggie moms?

[Aric2000]

Now isn't that a fascinating hypothesis?

It's fun to talk about, that's for sure.

We need to figure out how to build a time machine and go back and look for ourselves...

[xzins]

In our evolutionary past the best way to restore depleted iron was to eat meat. But women were probably not hunters, and so they must have manipulated men with sexual favors to bringing home a blood-soaked dinner. This manipulative move, Dr. Shlain suggests, then set into motion just about every aspect of human behavior.

This is too stupid for words.

Guess this prehistoric vixex had a blood test, and woke up one morning and said, "Hot damn...I'm low on red blood cells. If I can flirt my vegetarian male into killling meat, since I know that that will increase my iron supply due to the recent lab tests that tell me such, then I and my offspring will survive. Hmmmm.....wonder what kind of marinade to use on that meat?"

[shamusotoole]

Ping

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

More likely it was a pickles-and-ice-cream cravings kind of thang, xzins.

However, we should always remember St. Camille's classic quote:

"If civilization were left up to women alone, we'd all still be living in grass huts."

[50sDad]

I'm confused. Is this post anti-men, anti-meat, or just anti-human?

[GodfearingTexan]

what did early humans act like? i guess they would be mostly down-to-business most of the time. why dont you go live out in the woods off of fish and game and plant life and try to survive that way whilst you fended off attacks on your territory by other roaming humans. you'd be less snooty and more open to your God-given role of wife and mother. we feed you, then you give us your body and our children. then we build a family and conquer other families.

[MalcolmS]

>>>For example, the human brain did not suddenly expand 150,000 years ago with the appearance of modern humans, but about 1.5 million years ago, when brain size doubled for the first time and then continued to do so. <<<

I think I read about this happening somewhere else, although the timescale was a bit different.

From the Bible, Genesis 3

2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
...
16 To the woman he said,
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.

Why did the brain need to double in size? Maybe to contain the knowledge of evil as well as good. And what is the result of a larger brain size--a larger head, making it harder to give birth.

I know this is all a stretch, but it is interesting nevertheless, and certainly no less of an extrapolative speculation that the original article.

[presidio9]

Ummmmm.... okaaaaay....

[CobaltBlue]

Kind of a mean review, but I haven't read the book so maybe it's justified.

Females exchanging sex for meat doesn't seem crazy to me. The men in my family like to hunt and fish, I get to clean and cook, traditional division of labor.

I am not aware of any anthropological study that compares diet and social structure cross-culturally, but it seems to me that hunting-gatherhing societies are more egalitarian than pastoral ones.

The men who own the cows/camels/sheep/goats call the shots and run the place, and keep the women locked up.

In hunting-gathering societies, whichever man comes home with meat gets the women that night? Probably not all the women, mankind tends to be monogamous, but at least the spare women who don't already have a man.

[xzins]

Old wives.....pickles & ice cream.....die hard.

[Junior]

Naw, she simply woke up one morning craving red meat. Cravings are a body's way of telling us we're low on something.

[The SISU kid]

Don't you mean "MEATEOR"?? ;)