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Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution

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From a mathematical/statistical viewpoint, one of most unjustified beliefs of the modern age is that humans are a killer species. Unfortunately this myth is embedded in both popular and scientific cultures, and has resulted in a completely distorted view of human and primate species. The number of humans throughout history that have actually killed another human being is extremely small, and warfare is actually quite rare between humans. Yet we are told over and over again that humans have an innate propensity for murder or violence. The good news is that such a viewpoint has been challenged recently by some anthropologists and social psychologists, with two of these being the authors of this book. They not only give fossil evidence that supports their assertion that humans and other primates are not violent by nature, but also give constructive arguments as to their actual nature, namely that their behavior is a consequence of their exposure to predation. The book is fascinating reading, and readers who accept the "Man the Hunter" paradigm in anthropology will find solid challenges to their belief structures. It is indeed refreshing to finally see a book in print that gives serious effort to countering this paradigm.

The book begins with the authors asking whether human evolution has been molded by hunting ability or by survival techniques that were developed to avoid being eaten. They then spend much of the book elaborating on the fossil record and contemporary evidence of predation on human and non-human primates. The authors are intellectually honest enough to admit that quantitative data is sparse, and that they use current examples of predation on primates to estimate the rates of predation on ancient hominids. Fossils of the losers in predator-prey encounters are available they say, but there are not enough of them to obtain conclusive figures on the rate of predation or reliable information on successful strategies to outwit predators.

As an example of their analysis, the authors point out that in all the research conducted so far, killings among chimpanzees averaged only one every 8.5 - 17 years. So much for the assertion that chimpanzees are natural-born killers. They also point out, but unfortunately do not give any references, that current research into the neurophysiology of aggression between species indicates that this form of aggression is very different from the violence humans sometimes wage against each other. Because of its importance, and because it would enhance the case of the authors, it would have been very helpful if the authors had cited research papers on this topic.

Most enlightening is the section of the book entitled "The Other 50%" the authors illustrate, without appeals to some current notions of "masculine" versus "feminine" science, the pitfalls of ignoring how the females are behaving in primate groups. Why is the behavior of females always ignored in anthropological studies? The historical record reveals that women are even less violent than men have been, and most men, in fact the vast majority, have not been violent. In this section the authors also briefly discuss the research of Adrienne Zihlman, a physical anthropologist whose studies revealed that in early hominid societies women conducted most of the socialization of the young and were repositories of group knowledge, among other things. Most interestingly, these studies revealed that females chose sexual partners that were less aggressive than others, completing negating frequent contemporary assertions to the contrary.

Other interesting discussions or facts in the book include: 1. The large change (300cc) in cranial capacity that occurred from the time of the first known member of human genus (H. habilis) to H. erectus. The authors quote research that indicates that 20cc of brain tissue is added every 100,000 years. 2. The "Man the Dancer" hypothesis. The authors admit to sarcasm here, but their discussion serves as an amusing counterexample to the "Man the Hunter" dogma. Activities such as face-to-face sex, cooperation, language and singing, and bipedalism could be explained by a propensity to dance rather than a desire to hunt, they humorously emphasize. In a light-hearted way they expose the absurdity of the Man the Hunter hypothesis. 3. The detailed discussion of the six different explanations for bipedalism: carrying, vigilance, heat-dissipation, energy-efficiency, display, and foraging. The authors are careful to point out that none of these explanations are causal explanations of bipedalism, but rather our ancestors were `preadapted' for it. They discuss some of the factors that make bipedalism advantageous, such as carrying food and tools, sitting upright while eating, etc. 4. The discussion of the predominant role of intelligence in dealing with predators, by confronting the `predation sequence' at its earliest stages.

So why do so many scientists and the "general public" accept the view that human ancestors were bloodthirsty killers? The authors believe that there are three reasons for this, namely the `perverted' Western views of modern humans, the Christian concept of `original sin', and `sloppy science'. They devote an entire chapter to the elaboration of these reasons, and their arguments are convincing. Whether or not their ideas will replace the current hunter-killer paradigm only time will tell. Hopefully these ideas, or better ones that are formulated when more evidence becomes available, will do just that.

This is an excellent and balanced book about humans as prey for other animals. It is at a "popular" level, but professionals will be interested in much of the data. The authors marshal evidence of everything from eagles to hyenas eating people and other primates, and point out that the predator universe back when people were evolving was much more impressive than now--sabretooth cats the size of bears, with fangs over six inches long, abounded. Here in California, we had lions almost twice the size of African lions; wolves as big as St. Bernards; and other friendly fauna.

Obviously, early hominids were more hunted than hunting. The rise of brain size clearly went along with a rise in hunting and in self-protecting ability, but I was surprised to find out how many people get eaten even today.

The authors deconstruct the myth of the violent chimp, and subject claims of human aggressiveness to some deflation. A point they could make more clearly is that hunting has nothing to do with intraspecies aggression; just watch a cat--the brain and behavior mechanisms of hunting have to be quite different from those for intraspecies fighting. Hunting did not make humans fierce to each other. Probably, group rivalry did that.

My wife recalls from her Peace Corps days in Ethiopia the need to stay locked in one's house at night, because of the hyenas; they ate about one person per day in Addis Ababa. An acquaintance, noted for his arrogance, went swimming in the Nile in spite of local warnings about crocodiles. He was last seen disappearing slowly, feet first, down a large Nile croc. Local people watched helplessly from the bank; the river was a churning mass of huge crocs. Eventually they could venture out and catch the offending croc--too late. Another Peace Corps worker visited the site, and found the locals selling souvenir photos of the croc cut open with the unfortunate Peace Corps volunteer's body parts being cut out of its stomach. The story is still used as a cautionary tale.... Yes, humans are prey.

A debate has raged, politely you may be sure, among archaeologists concerning whether Homo habilis, Homo ergaster, and other pre-modern humans were ferocious hunters or skulking scavengers. That debate is not even near resolution, and may well be conducted on false questions, but authors hunt and Sussman want us to consider human evolution from another angle, that of primates in general and hominids in particular as more preyed upon than preying. Their evidence derives from two sources: observation of depradation on primate species in the world today, and forensic examination of bite and claw wounds in hominid/homonoid fossils. Some reviewers seem to have read an ethical issue into the book, addressing aggression in human nature. Frankly, if such issues were raised, I hardly noticed them. My attention was riveted to the question of the central importance of predation in evolution, not only of Homo sapiens but of all multicellular life.

The most successful predators on primates in the world today - leopards, eagles, and crocodilians - would seem to have been likely predators on australopithecines as well. Then there's some archaeological evidence that hyenas were on gastronomic terms with "Cro-Magnon" folk in China. But did fear of predators and the skills needed to avoid them play a significant role in human evolution. The authors think so, and their case, if not proven, is at least entertaining to the jury.

I'm prompted - unrepentant carnivore that I am - to ask a broader question of evolutionary theory. Has predation been a significant accelerator of evolution, a driver if you will, since the pre-Cambrian?
It's generally supposed that the development of our "large-but-not-quite-large-enough" brains was fueled by the calories of hunted or scavenged flesh. Long before "us", however, was predation the driver of intelligence. Could we Wise Homos ever have existed without someone being eaten?

Every few years a new theory of human evolution emerges and its authors gleefully bash all those who came before. This is highly entertaining for the general reader and often very convincing too. In this case physical anthropologist Sussman and his former graduate student, wildlife biologist Hart counter the once vaunted and lately battered "man the hunter" scenario with its opposite: man as prey.

Nobody doubts that early hominids were prey to animals like saber tooth tigers, crocodiles, bears, hyenas and many more. But after reading the first half of "Man the Hunted," you will wonder how those poor hominids ever survived long enough to develop the brains needed to defend themselves and become us. The authors amass lots of fossil data and modern studies of predation to show that primates (including humans) were and still are, prey.

Reading this impressive catalog of dangers, you can't help but think of the defensive abilities other primates have that we lack - chimps are powerfully muscled and agile in trees, monkeys have long useful tails to swing swiftly through forest or jungle, gorillas are large and formidable, and all of them are more threatening as biters.

Hominids, however, with brains not much larger than chimps, had a puny physique (although more powerful than homo sapiens became) no claws or sharp teeth, and they couldn't run very fast on their two legs or swing as easily into the trees. No defenses at all, it appears, except for vigilance and the protection of the group. How did we ever survive?

The authors tackle this question in the second half of the book, approaching evolution from a defensive posture. Bipedalism, for instance. Numerous "models" have been posited to explain why we walk around upright - to free our arms for carrying, to allow scanning of terrain, to make us more energy efficient in terms of foraging for food and heat dissipation, to look larger and more robust to predators and mates. The authors reject all of these as primary causes, but incorporate each as an advantage to a creature already "preadapted," as all primates are, for bipedalism.

First, we came down from the trees, because, living at the edge of the forest, many ground plants were available. Then, "it made life much SAFER to be bipedal." "Bipedalism is only advantageous if you leave the trees and descend to the ground for the majority of your activities, and if you do it BEFORE you have evolved enormous torsos and arms." At this point we could still take refuge in the trees fairly easily, and standing on two feet we could scan more of the area for danger.

In the last chapter they lay out rules for hominid survival which include living in social groups of 25 to 75, using both trees and ground, being able to scatter into smaller groups or come together to mob or intimidate predators, having more than one male in social groups as protection, using males as intimidating-looking (because upright) sentinels, carefully choosing sleeping sights and employing the advantage of intelligence.

"Those were the survival rules and surely our earliest ancestors must have followed them. We can state that with total authority - if they hadn't exhibited the behavior of a hunted species, we wouldn't be here debating our origins."

By this time I was convinced, but I didn't need much convincing. There's a lot of interesting material here - particularly the debunking of the murderous chimp model (which arose out of human interaction on Jane Goodall's Gombe site) a fascinating discussion of fossil teeth and diet, the close examination of the anatomical features of fossils like "Lucy" and others. And, of course, the extensive and detailed descriptions and illustrations of (happily) extinct predators like the bone-crushing dog, which weighed 250 pounds and hunted in packs, the bear-dogs, which could bound like cats and had teeth like wolves and the more familiar hyenas and leopards and lions and tigers.

Their scathing dismissal of "man the hunter" and every scientist who ever touted such a bloodthirsty beast is highly amusing though occasionally shrill and a bit puzzling, since man the mighty hunter has long been cast off his pedestal and forced to share a level playing field with woman the gatherer, for one. Primatologists have long admitted that our ancestors were prey as well and that predation certainly influenced our evolution.

The difference here is the degree of emphasis Hart and Sussman place on predation as an evolutionary catalyst and the extent of their research on predation. Their book is readable and innovative, with provocative arguments on subjects from the role of "original sin" in scientific theory to comparing the ubiquitous presence of dancing as well as violence in all human cultures.

Thoroughly annotated, with a lengthy bibliography and a good index, this is a fine addition to the growing body of well-written and entertaining books on human origins.

--Portsmouth Herald

Were the ancestors of humans ever part of "the circle of life" as described by Mufasa in The Lion King? Do the eagle talon marks on the fossilized skull of the 2 million year old Taung child represent an oddity or hint at the norm? Why did Robert Ardrey push so strongly for a "Man the hunter" explanation of hominid evolution? Are current studies of chimpanzees representative of the way Homo habilis or H. erectus interacted with their environment and their potential predators?

Donna Hart and Robert Sussman tackle these issues in Man The Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution. They are not the first to suggest that early humans sometimes ended in the belly of the beast (remember the opening scene in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey). They are not the first to suggest that humans are still preyed upon by large carnivores (as in David Quammen's Monster of God). They are one of the first to lay out a thoughtful argument for professionals and laypeople alike that humans are what they are because of predation, and not in spite of it.

I agree with Hart and Sussman that early humans were shaped by the coevolutionary dance always occurring between predators and prey, and that, for reasons that are still unclear, this idea of "man the hunted" has lost in both popular and scientific circles to a "man the hunter" model to explain human evolution. They lay out the evidence for 1) early humans as prey in a predator-rich environment (fossil evidence), and 2) modern primates as prey in today's human modified world (who eats living primates).

Hart and Sussman do go off on some tangents that I found puzzling and irritating. They obviously have problems with Richard Dawkin's "selfish gene" theory, and they are not fans of E. O. Wilson's sociobiology synthesis (although it seemed they only read the last chapter in his book). They didn't reference the interesting book by David Baron, The Beast in the Garden, on mountain lion predation on humans. And they missed a wonderful opportunity to focus on the "so what" question. If modern humans truly were shaped by predation, what can this knowledge tell us about ourselves? Randolph Nesse and George C. Williams take this route in their book, Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine. What can we understand about ourselves in light of the revelation that humans spent most of their existence foraging for food and avoiding becoming food? How does that relate to our interactions with each other, other animals, the wilderness, open space, caves, pet cats and dogs, parasites, and on, and on?

I enjoyed the book. It is readable, interesting, and well referenced. Hart and Sussman have opened a door. They are inviting us in to think about who we really are, and why.

Authors demonstrate that not only does the evolutionary homo sapiens enjoy a long history of hunting, but probably went through millions of years of being hunted. Mankind's instincts reflect both mechanisms for being the target of predators and being predators themselves.

The anthropological question of how humans evolved into a species that uses its brains rather than its brawn for survival remains an issue of contention in the academic community. Hart and Sussman have a unique take on the evolutionary mechanism that caused this: rather than "man the hunter" (using his brain to plan and organize hunts and create tools to subdue game), they propose "man as prey" caused us to evolve as we have. Their argument has merit.

About half of the book discusses animals that can or have preyed on humans and early hominids - everything from eagles, crocodiles and hyeneas, to lions, tigers and bears (oh my!). Anyone who has spent any time in the wild is quickly reminded just how vulnerable we are to predators, as Hart and Sussman point out not only through contemporary accounts, but also through the fossil record. Establishing that we are food, they next go on to hypothesize how this may have influenced our early ancestors to adopt. Essentially they believe that we adopted a wide variety of coping mechanisms from vocalization and socialization to versitile locomotion and most importantly, "outsmarting" predators, causing them to find easier meals.

The authors readily admit that sociological evidence is impossible to gather on early hominids, but hypothesize and extrpolate based on behaviours of similar primates. This is also used as evidence to refute the "man as hunter" hypothesis. (Baboons, chimpanzees, and bonobos for example, are only opportunistic hunters rather than strict predators). The strongest evidence, I thought, was their discussion of fossil dentition (and the inference that early hominids ate seeds, tubers and vegitation rather than a steady diet of meat.) I found most interesting their disucssion of how the "man the hunter" hypothesis was originated.

The idea of "man the mighty hunter", they contend, lies with a patrilineal view of primates (which was incorrect, as it turns out, in understanding Baboon social heirarchy, and by extension of our own evolution), a Puritanical view of nature (as something that must be tamed or conquored) and a Hobbesan-understanding of primate interaction (life as "nasty, brutish and short", therefore condemning man to constant warfare and strife.) On the contrary, Hart and Sussman point out social cooperation is the norm among primates, not warfare or competition; they also emphasize the role of the female in our evolution, rather than males. (WIth chimpanzees, for example, females are the recipticles of knowledge and tool making. Females are the leaders of baboon troops, not males.)

Certainly their ideas are not without its detractors, as evidenced by Hart and Sussman's discussion of the academic controversy. For the lay reader, their thesis is accessable and truly fascinating - and, I for one, see the merits of their position. Highly recommended.

As with any new or unique perspective on the evolution of humanity, "Man the Hunted" has drawn both praise and damnation. Being informed that your ancestors were little more than snacks for large carnivores may bring some human-centric reviewers down a peg or two and also induce some nasty penmanship.
I like my natural history gritty. How about pp 140 " the crowned hawk-eagle not only has the power and the momentum, the surprise and the speed, but those great talons are used with such exactitude that the heart of the prey is the target ... In one juvenile monkey the heart was triple-pierced from a single deathblow; the talon went in one side of the heart, came out the other side, and- achievable only because of the camber of the eagle's talon- curved back and reentered the heart once again."
This is an engaging and highly readable book, and its premise stands the test. Let's face it, the famous "Taung baby" discovered in 1924 by Raymond Dart was recently proven to have been the prey of a large eagle; there are the typical "can opener" marks of eagle talons on Taung's skull. The only disagreement I would have with the authors is the extent of meat eating and its time interval in our history. Hart and Sussman maintain that "top predator" status was only recently attained by humans; whereas in my opinion brain expansion = meat. The human fossil record is one of exponential brain expansion, and something must have driven that expansion; meat and society.

The authors themselves are extremely fair in their treatment of others who have been critical of their work, and also point out where their own views diverge on aspects of human evolution. There is no apparent political agenda being pushed and the quotes from Robert Ardrey and E. Tylor are placed in a fair and relevant context. There are dozens of attributions and a full bibliography, in response to another review.

The authors start off building up their case for mankind being the bottom of the food chain - that we were hunted. They use the fossil record AND the study of present day primates. They uncover some of the myths and point out many of the flaws of past beliefs. They touch on everything from could early hominids even EAT meat, why do modern primates choose NOT to walk on two legs, and even language.

I believe they do such a great job and really answered many of the questions so clearly and logically that I could not see any flaws in their evidence.

After 177 pages of descriptions of predators devouring prey, the author finally reveals that she has no way to connect her thesis (that hominid development was heavily influenced by predation) with what little is actually known about hominids - that they were fully bipedal before there was any great increase in cranial capacity. She refers to our evolution as a "random serendipitous route" and asserts that "we can simply accept that it was a combination of many factors that likely made bipedal locomation advantageous..."

The primary redeeming factor in an otherwise pointless exercise is the chapter "debunking 'man the hunter,'" a long overdue admission by mainstream academics that the savannah theory doesn't square with the fossil record.