The Evolution of Man

[Pckts]

(11-08-2016, 12:07 AM)brotherbear Wrote: My Response "I've been to oldupai gorge, if their habitat was similar to how it is now, there was vast grass lands that wouuld of been there, but also rolling hills and mountains as well. There also was a massive volcano present during their time and the other hominids that came after. " 
 
*My thoughts were, and are, if Australopithicus did not live in a heavily wooded environment, where he could scamper swiftly up a tree when threatened by large predators, then he had to have had some other strategy of survival. He could nor outrun the hyenas, wild dogs, and big cats. He certainly could not out fight them. He could jump up and down and scream, but that would not stop them. He could play dead, but they would eat him anyway. He could not swiftly burrow into the ground. The only thing I can think of is perhaps he had such a nasty body odor that caused him not to be first choice on any predator's menu. 

What Do the Fossils Say?
Instead of studying living traditional cultures, as Chagnon did, Washington University's Sussman decided to base his research for Man the Hunted on a hard look at the fossil record.
"I have always, since my early days in anthropology, thought the hunting hypothesis was based on little actual evidence from the fossils," Sussman said.
Sussman found that our ancestors from three or four million years ago, Australopithecus afarensis, had small teeth, lacked tools, and were about three feet (one meter) tall.
Lacking size or weapons, this early human species most likely used brains, agility, and social skills to escape from predators, the anthropologist says.
At that time, he says, A. afarensis suffered the same predation rates as many other primate species—about 6 percent.
But about two million years ago there was a shift in the record. Somehow predation rates on other species suddenly went up while rates on human ancestors declined.
Another group of primates with humanlike attributes, the genus Paranthropus, went extinct by about one million years ago—the same time our predecessor, Homo erectus, was expanding across Africa and Eurasia.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...rey_2.html

All the Angles
Several other researchers presented in St. Louis their work exploring various genetic, hormonal, and psychiatric explanations for early humans' success.
James K. Rilling directs the Laboratory for Darwinian Neuroscience at Emory University in Atlanta. His brain-imaging studies have revealed a potential connection between the act of cooperating and the brain's reward centers.
If prehistoric humans got instant gratification from cooperating, he says, that may have aided group survival.
And Charles Snowdon, a psychologist and zoologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, pointed out that expectant monkey fathers gain weight and take on hormonal changes along with their pregnant partners.
The study offers evidence that these primates evolved to be good fathers, an important attribute for protecting young from predators.
Snowdon's endocrine studies have also shown that the likelihood that male primates will dally with new females decreases when the male already has a mate—and still more when the pair is raising offspring.
It's possible a similar system of mate fidelity aided the group cohesion needed to minimize predation in early humans, he said.
The University of Arizona's Fry says the notion that early humans relied on cooperation changes more than the widespread image of a club-toting early human in a warlike stance.
He believes it has implications for today's human interactions.
"Many of us Westerners share a view of human nature that humans are naturally warlike," Fry said. "This view helps perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Changing our perspective to match the anthropological record, he said, "opens new possibilities in today's world." Reply