Craig Stanford's "The Hunting Apes"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the premise of Stanford's book, "The Hunting Apes", which contends that early human social formations were predicated on the acquisition and sharing of meat. The paper explains how Stanford, after exploring the role of female and male apes as hunters and consumers of meat, arrived at the conclusion that the acquisition and sharing of meat contributed to a "might-makes-right" form of patriarchy.

From the Paper:

"Over the course of the last 100 years, consensus has varied greatly with respect to the emergence of mankind in Africa; especially with respect to temperament. These theories have met with everything from hearty praise to scornful denunciation; the book jacket to "African Genesis," published in the 1950's, includes the opinion of the New York Times: "The theories are wildly wrong." One of the most controversial subjects has been man's diet, and how that has had a bearing on the evolution of mankind. This is the subject of Craig Stanford's "The Hunting Apes," which portrays early human social formations as being predicated on the acquisition and sharing of meat."

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