Animal Connection: New Hypothesis for Human Evolution and Human Nature

ScienceDaily ^ | July 20, 2010 | adapted from Penn State material written by Kevin Stacey

[SunkenCiv]

It's no secret to any dog-lover or cat-lover that humans have a special connection with animals.... paleoanthropologist Pat Shipman of Penn State University argues that this human-animal connection goes well beyond simple affection. Shipman proposes that the interdependency of ancestral humans with other animal species... played a crucial and beneficial role in human evolution over the last 2.6 million years...

"Having sharp tools transformed wimpy human ancestors into effective predators who left many cut marks on the fossilized bones of their prey," Shipman said. Becoming a predator also put our ancestors into direct competition with other carnivores for carcasses and prey. As Shipman explains, the human ancestors who learned to observe and understand the behavior of potential prey obtained more meat...

Over time, Shipman explains, the volume of information about animals increased... benefits of communicating this knowledge to others increased.. and communicating information through symbols. "Though we cannot discover the earliest use of language itself, we can learn something from the earliest prehistoric art with unambiguous content. Nearly all of these artworks depict animals. Other potentially vital topics -- edible plants, water, tools or weapons, or relationships among humans -- are rarely if ever shown,"...

Shipman concludes that detailed information about animals became so advantageous that our ancestors began to nurture wild animals -- a practice that led to the domestication of the dog about 32,000 years ago. She argues that, if insuring a steady supply of meat was the point of domesticating animals, as traditionally has been assumed, then dogs would be a very poor choice as an early domesticated species...

Shipman suggests, instead, that the primary impetus for domestication was to transform animals we had been observing intently for millennia into living tools during their peak years, then only later using their meat as food.

[count-your-change]

Welllll, this just changes everything, I mean the whole humanodog paradigm is completely turned on its head, the cosmic significance of these suggestions cannot be overemphasized, history will have to rewritten and whole new relationships established between dog and owners.

Or just someone grinding out a useless paper.I suspect the latter.

[Rockingham]

Why should they change? The Queen of England similarly has people at the ready to open doors for her.

[Pharmboy]

"Having sharp tools transformed wimpy human ancestors into effective predators who left many cut marks on the fossilized bones of their prey," Shipman said. Becoming a predator also put our ancestors into direct competition with other carnivores for carcasses and prey. As Shipman explains, the human ancestors who learned to observe and understand the behavior of potential prey obtained more meat...

Geez...back in the '80s, Prof. Shipman was selling hard the notion that humans were scavengers and NOT predators based on a few overlapping cut marks on some fossilized bones. Gee, Pat, have the successful grant applications changed their theme?

[Salamander]

*Applause!*

[Verginius Rufus]

That reminds me of a "Tom & Jerry" comic book I saw when I was a kid. Jerry and the younger mouse want to go into a building but it has a sign reading NO PETS. Jerry says to the baby mouse, "That's OK--we're PESTS."

[colorado tanker]

A special relationship, indeed . . . .

[SunkenCiv]

I haven’t checked the thread for Viking Kitties or ICanHasCheezeburger references. ;’)