The Hunting Apes [Hardcover]

Craig B. Stanford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 8, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0691011605 | ISBN-13: 978-0691011608

What makes humans unique? What makes us the most successful animal species inhabiting the Earth today? Most scientists agree that the key to our success is the unusually large size of our brains. Our large brains gave us our exceptional thinking capacity and led to humans' other distinctive characteristics, including advanced communication, tool use, and walking on two legs. Or was it the other way around? Did the challenges faced by early humans push the species toward communication, tool use, and walking and, in doing so, drive the evolutionary engine toward a large brain? In this provocative new book, Craig Stanford presents an intriguing alternative to this puzzling question--an alternative grounded in recent, groundbreaking scientific observation. According to Stanford, what made humans unique was meat. Or, rather, the desire for meat, the eating of meat, the hunting of meat, and the sharing of meat.

Based on new insights into the behavior of chimps and other great apes, our now extinct human ancestors, and existing hunting and gathering societies, Stanford shows the remarkable role that meat has played in these societies. Perhaps because it provides a highly concentrated source of protein--essential for the development and health of the brain--meat is craved by many primates, including humans. This craving has given meat genuine power--the power to cause males to form hunting parties and organize entire cultures around hunting. And it has given men the power to manipulate and control women in these cultures. Stanford argues that the skills developed and required for successful hunting and especially the sharing of meat spurred the explosion of human brain size over the past 200,000 years. He then turns his attention to the ways meat is shared within primate and human societies to argue that this all-important activity has had profound effects on basic social structures that are still felt today.

Sure to spark a lively debate, Stanford's argument takes the form of an extended essay on human origins. The book's small format, helpful illustrations, and moderate tone will appeal to all readers interested in those fundamental questions about what makes us human.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Most evolutionary biologists agree that what makes humans unique among animals is our brainpower. But why--and how--did we evolve our oversized brains? Craig Stanford dusts off the old "Man the Hunter" theory, roundly criticized as replete with bad (and sexist) assumptions, and finds a thick, juicy, postmodern steak at the heart of it. He argues, "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 studied the great apes, especially chimpanzees, and came to the conclusion that among primates, meat is a valuable commodity both nutritionally and socially. Although many other foods are nutritionally desirable, meat is unique in its social desirability, and for males, it represents power:

Underlying the nutritional aspect of getting meat, part of the social fabric of the community is revealed in the dominance displays, the tolerated theft, and the bartered meat for sexual access. The end of the hunt is often only the beginning of a whole other arena of social interaction.

In Stanford's view, females play a crucial role in keeping groups together and cementing individual relationships. Meat plays an important role in the way males fit in to a society, and the ability of males to get meat readily may very well explain their societal dominance. These conclusions are not liable to be nearly so controversial as the way Stanford gathered his data--he drew broad parallels between chimps and modern hunter-gatherer societies. Stanford also admits that a lack of fossil evidence supporting his meat/brain link is problematic. The Hunting Apes is an interesting look at what is likely the worthwhile center of a discredited evolutionary theory. --Therese Littleton

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 262 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (February 8, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691011605
• ISBN-13: 978-0691011608
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,706,496 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Craig Stanford is a well-known authority on the behavior of primates and other animals, and on the biological and cultural roots of human behavior. He is Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences at USC and Director of the USC Jane Goodall Research Center. Stanford has conducted field research on primates (especially our close relatives the chimpanzee and mountain gorilla) and other animals for 20 years in Africa and Asia. He is best known for his research on chimpanzee hunting and meat-eating, done in collaboration with his mentor Jane Goodall, and for his work on the ecological relationship between chimpanzee and gorillas in forests where the two apes occur together. He has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards for both his research and writing, and is a frequent guest on radio and tv.

Stanford is the author of more than 120 scholarly and popular articles on animal behavior and human nature topics. In addition to his primate and human origins works, Stanford has recently published The Last Tortoise (Harvard University Press, 2010) about the race against extinction for many of the world's endangered tortoises. He is currently working on a book about the conservation issues facing the great apes.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, August 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Hunting Apes (Hardcover)

As an avid lay reader of the latest work in the area of human evolution, I approached The Hunting Apes with a little trepidation; it's the latest in a long line of "The X (insert adjective) Ape[s]." No one behavior could have accounted for our rise to domination of all other species. However, I thought that Stanford did a great job convincing me of the importance of meat-eating in our early ancestors, theory and especially in debunking the old Man The Hunter and replacing it with something a whole lot more rational and well-researched. The best part of the book for me was Stanford's deftly written overview of current hot debates in the study of our evolution. I took an undergraduate survey course in human evolution a few years ago, and if this book had been assigned I would have gotten a lot more out of the class. I give it five big stars.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Steak, sex and society, August 25, 2001

By 

Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hunting Apes (Hardcover)

With a wealth of primate research supporting his thesis, Stanford argues that meat is an essential element in human evolution. Although not the older and simpler "Killer Ape" hypothesis of some years ago, Stanford sees meat hunting and consumption as the foundation of human society. Meat also acted as a basis in developing the resource voracious human brain and associated communication skills we developed. Among those primates who consume meat, its acquisition remains a male-dominated activity. However, instead of resulting in inexorably male-dominating societies, meat distribution and consumption results in complex negotiation patterns in which females play significant, if not equal roles. This concept suggests humans must seriously reassess their role in Nature. Urging that humanity's lineage is far from linear, he presents a good overview of recent studies. Although the number of definitive fossils is meager, they still demonstrate that our primate roots are not in doubt. The struggle by researchers to properly place humans within the larger animal community has been stoutly resisted by many, both scholars and the lay public alike. Feminist anthropologists, in particular, have striven to displace the male dominated academic group with excessive roles of females in various primate cultures. Some have stretched the idea to the point of seeing females as the true source of language, nutritional foods and even tool making. Stanford addresses these suggestions as mostly unrealistic. Instead, he notes how meat plays a major role in mating scenarios, granting females an active role in selection. Acquiring meat may be accomplished through various strategies, from opportunistic scavenging to actively seeking prey. The true hunter, he contends, must develop a sophisticated array of skills in pursuing meat - prey location, stealth, communication, and the tools able to kill and process. Once obtained, the distribution of the kill becomes an essential element in societal arrangement. He reviews many forms social structures have taken, from selfish monopolization of the kill to the hunter himself receiving but limited return for his effort. What the hunter does gain in all societies is respect and recognition of the group. For Stanford, this is but one indication of the diversity encountered in all primate societies, human and otherwise. The only universal is the hierarchical structure resulting from the hunting role. While hierarchy is the norm, dominance doesn't necessarily follow. In this study, Stanford examines the many social structures primates have developed. These range from nearly solitary, such as the orang-utan, to both male-male and male-female bonding strategies. These elements are essential to understanding the roots of human societal structures. As an example, in primate societies, in contrast to many other animals, it is the female who migrates from the natal group. Stanford doesn't follow this to suggest that dowries and bride-bargaining derive from this behavior, but the inference is clear. Indeed, part of the value of this book is his restriction to biological patterns. One need only accept that humans are included in the primate community. Stanford's book may raise some hackles, but it's far too important an idea to dismiss lightly. He's a skilled enough writer not to get bogged down in a pedantic rendition of the evidence or his conclusions. With the large number of works on the vagaries of human evolution appearing in recent years, finding worthwhile books can be a daunting task. Rest assured that The Hunting Apes is worth your attention and investment. Future research may modify it slightly, but is unlikely to supplant it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great little book, February 15, 2000

By 

Mike Hershberger (Chicago, Ill.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hunting Apes (Hardcover)

I found Hunting Apes to be a superbly written summary of current debates in human evolution. Stanford makes a case for meat-sharing's supremacy that may or may not be true, but even if his theory were someday disproved, this book would stand as an excellent piece of readable science.