History 114 W3

Robert Ardrey (best-selling books)

Popularised Dart’s theory, wrote ‘The Nature of Man’ series

• Humans innately territorial

• Aggression is biologically inherited

• War is not a deviation from human nature but an expression of it

• Aligned w/ geopolitical pessimism of the time

• Influenced Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick (films)

A Space Odyssey - bone scene (cinematic int of Dart’s theory)

The Debunking: Who Challenged the Killer Ape?

1. Taphonomy: C. K. Brain

2. Primatology: Cooperation over carnage

3. Feminist & Social Critiques

Taphonomy: C. K. Brain

1981

• published The Hunters or the Hunted? An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy

• Death knell of the Osteodontokeratic hypothesis

• Showed bones left in caves were not relics of cannibalistic apemen, but rather the remains of victims (of big cats)

Primatology: Cooperation over carnage

• Fieldwork from ppl like Jane Goodall

• Chimpanzees do engage in violence, but also: form alliances, share food, create complex social grooming, and display reconciliation behaviours

Feminist & Social Critiques

• Early hominin survival was dependent on cooperation -

• Gathering contributed more calories

• Social bonds central to human evolution

Why is the theory still around?

It is narratively powerful: it offers a dramatic origin, is a simple explanation for war, and violent stories of ourselves feel intuitively plausible in violent times

Key questions

1. How do you measure whether a species has been successful?

2. What defines us as ‘humans’?

Why ‘Cavemen’ Still Matter

• Political & moral work done by the idea of the ‘primitive’ other

• What does it mean to be ‘human’?

• What exactly is the boundary of humanity?

Neanderthals & Denisovans

• Diverged out of Africa 600 000 y.a

• Modern humans later evolved in Africa & spread across the globe again, encountering other groups

• 40 000 y.a - only modern humans remained in the archaeological records

Neanderthals

Eurasia, large brains, physical strength (robust), buried their dead - beginnings of religion

Denisovans

Siberia, finger bone DNA analysis, late 2000s - genetic legacy (defined by genomes, not skeletons), high ancestry in SE Asian pop

Homo floresiensis (The Hobbit)

2003, Island of Flores, Indonesia, 100 000 - 50 000 y.a

• Small - island dwarfism

Caveman Culture and cognition

Controlled fire, tools, burial practices, pigment use & possible symbolic behaviour

Caveman genetics

Interbreeding w/ modern humans (1-2% Neanderthal DNA in most non-African pop)

Extinction

• Not replacement theory

• Assimilation & demographic disadvantages

• Climate instability as a co-factor