Posted on 02/19/2006 12:18:49 PM PST by blam
Predators 'drove human evolution'
By Paul Rincon
BBC News science reporter, St Louis
The alternative view that man was the one hunted was suggested
The popular view of our ancient ancestors as hunters who conquered all in their way is wrong, researchers have told a major US science conference.
Instead, they say, early humans were on the menu for predatory beasts.
This may have driven humans to evolve increased levels of co-operation, according to their theory.
Despite humankind's considerable capacity for war and violence, we are highly sociable animals, according to anthropologists.
James Rilling at Emory University in Atlanta, US, has been using brain imaging techniques to investigate the biological mechanisms behind co-operation.
He has imaged the brains of people playing a game under experimental conditions that involved choosing between co-operation and non-co-operation.
From the parts of the brain that were activated during the game, he found that mutual co-operation is rewarding; people reacted negatively when partners did not co-operate.
Dr Rilling also discovered that his subjects seemed to have enhanced memory for those people that did not reciprocate in the experiment.
Man 'the hunted'
By contrast, our closest relatives - chimpanzees - have been shown not to come to the aid of others, even when it would pose no cost to themselves.
"Our intelligence, co-operation and many other features we have as modern humans developed from our attempts to out-smart the predator," said Robert Sussman of Washington University in St Louis.
According to the theory espoused by Professor Sussman, early humans evolved not as hunters but as prey for animals such as wild dogs, cats, hyenas, eagles and crocodiles.
He points to the example of one ape-like species thought to be ancestral to humans, Australopithecus afarensis.
A. afarensis was what is known as an "edge species"; it could live in trees and on the ground, and could take advantage of both.
"Primates that are edge species, even today, are basically prey species, not predators," Professor Sussman explained.
Hard target
Dr Agustin Fuentes at the University of Notre Dame agrees with the predation hypothesis.
He believes early humans were subject to several evolutionary pressures, including predation.
But he also thinks they were expending more energy at this time and that child-rearing became more demanding.
All these factors contributed to an emergence of sociable behaviour in hominids that made them harder targets for predators.
Dr Fuentes points to fossil evidence of predation in two different groups of humanlike species: Australopithecus and Paranthropus.
The latter group, it appears, could not adapt to pressures such as predation, and became extinct between one and 1.2 million years ago.
The scientists outlined their work at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in St Louis,
Naw, I was trying to be funny but i guess it didn't work. Back to the drawing board. :)
Children. Little babies and small children.
Wolves, eagles, and bears and cats of all sizes found them delicious and irresistible.
But only when the wild man with the big stick was otherwise preoccupied.
OK, who were these people being carried off by eagles???
And any people who were stupid enough to get eaten by crocodiles on a regular basis are about as smart as water buffalo, and deserve to be extinct. One member of the tribe falling prey every few years, ok, that is acceptable. But if you are going down to the local watering hole and keep getting eaten, you are not going to last long enough to evolve into anything. Me, I'd find another water source the first time it happened to anyone in my tribe.
Grizzly man, huh? The bears recently ate him and his girlfriend. Amazingly, there is an audio of that incident. They cut the bear open to retrieve the human body parts from his stomach, they knew which one did it because he had just filmed the bear.
It was a closed casket funeral.
I HIGHLY recommend watching the movie about him. The guy acts really bizarre like when he gets into the water and swims with a bear. Also all of his friends and the people they talk to (like the coroner), they are just... strange. There is sort of a surreal nature about the people they interview and if I did not know any better I would have thought this was an Ed Wood movie.
besides that the guy did get some great video of bears fighting and eating.
Of all the primates, humans are the only one that gives birth with the baby facing to to the rear. The mother is hindered with assisting birth because she'll break the baby's back if she tugs... she needs help from other humans...monkeys and other primates do not have this problem.
Humans are born 'backwards' due to the large head whose size is driven by a large brain. They do a 180 degree turn just before birth.
Me, I'd make the crocodile fearful of me.
Homo homini lupus.
Arn't people part of the food chain now for all large predators when they are unarmed with defensive weapons?
With the exception of horses, more humans are killed by dogs then any other animal.
It was a movie quote (and it turned out that the ROUS existed in the movie, too). Capybaras crack me up...
I hate to tell Professor Sussman but my husband says he is full of crap. Prey animals have eyes on the sides of their heads and all predators have their eyes in the front of their heads.
Most people we know have their eyes in the front of their heads. LOL /sarc
Robots are now appearing on the battlefield and just like human evolution they are now on the evolutionary fast track. 1,000 years from now humans may just be a curiosity at a zoo named Earth.
Darwins 4th law ....Survival of the least tasty !!
Was she holding cheese??.....That attracts them ,you know. ;-)
That is consistent with some of the singles bars i once frequented.
Because big brained women will be too smart for their own good. (and, not have children)
If Darwin is correct, and if the out-of-africa evolution theory is correct, it would follow that East Africans would be the winners of New York City and Boston marathons.
I'm not trying to be disrespectful here, but I find it highly unlikely that one could even begin to ascertain such things from a skull that has been exposed to the elements, and God knows what else, for two million years.
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