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Rough and Tumble
Aggression, Hunting, and Human Evolution
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2013
About this book
Travis Rayne Pickering argues that the advent of ambush hunting approximately two million years ago marked a milestone in human evolution, one that established the social dynamic that allowed our ancestors to expand their range and diet. He challenges the traditional link between aggression and human predation, however, claiming that while aggressive attack is a perfectly efficient way for our chimpanzee cousins to kill prey, it was a hopeless tactic for early human hunters, who—in comparison to their large, potentially dangerous prey—were small, weak, and slow-footed. Technology that evolved from wooden spears to stone-tipped spears and ultimately to the bow and arrow increased the distance between predator and prey and facilitated an emotional detachment that allowed hunters to stalk and kill large game. Based on studies of humans and of other primates, as well as on fossil and archaeological evidence, Rough and Tumble offers a new perspective on human evolution by decoupling ideas of aggression and predation to build a more realistic understanding of what it is to be human.
Author / Editor information
Contributor: Travis Pickering
Travis Rayne Pickering is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Honorary Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). He directs the multidisciplinary Swartkrans Paleoanthropological Research Project and is a co-director of the Olduvai Paleoanthropology and Paleoecology Project. He is the co-founder and coeditor of the Journal of Taphonomy and the coeditor of the book Breathing Life into Fossils.
Topics
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Frontmatter
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Contents
vii -
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Illustrations
ix -
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Acknowledgments
xi -
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Introduction
1 -
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1. A Man among Apes
5 -
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2. Prehistoric Bloodsport
20 -
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3. Tamping the Simian Urge
46 -
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4. Conceiving Our Past
65 -
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5. Death from Above
106 -
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Coda
125 -
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Notes
131 -
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References
163 -
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Index
203
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
July 22, 2019
eBook ISBN:
9780520955127
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
224
eBook ISBN:
9780520955127
Keywords for this book
hunting; hunter gatherers; proto humans; large game hunters; early human hunters; man vs nature; man versus nature; evolution; history; historical; engaging; dark; intense; archaeology; biology; life sciences; social science; archeology; hopeless tactic; wooden spears; diet and evolution; ancestors; popular science; aggression; human predation; archaeological record; archaeological evidence; human evolution; ape men; aggressive attack; human aggressiveness; human hunters; anthropology; emotional detachment
