On Becoming Human

By Nancy Makepeace Tanner

Book Overview

First published in 1981, On Becoming Human presents a unique theory of human origins, an original explanation of how early hominids evolved from their ape-like primate ancestors. Professor Nancy M.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521280281
• ISBN13: 9780521280280
• Release Date: August 1981
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent

This is an excellent book on the evolution of humans and a successful challenge to the androcentric, 'man the hunter', baboon-model of human evolution that preceded it. 'Woman the gatherer' has been incorporated into our models of human evolution but sometimes it seems that 'man the hunter' still predominates a little too much, especially in popular thinking, so reading this powerful work by Nancy Tanner is a reminder of the strength, scope and impact of her original argument. She makes the case for the chimpanzee as the more appropriate model than the baboon for early hominids which is now pretty much accepted. Considering the divergence from our common ancestor, Tanner makes the case for the selection pressures on females with young to feed themselves and their offspring in their new environment. Rather then continuing to forage - eating as they went as the males could still do - the mothers, under increased pressure, employed greater tool use and gathered and transported food to the safety of trees. There was a selection pressure for them to be efficient gatherers and for the mother and offspring group to share food and become more of a social unit. Chimpanzee mothers spend significantly more time foraging than do the males, and they also use tools more often and for longer periods such as termite fishing or nut cracking. It has also recently be reported that female chimpanzees in Senegal use sharpened 'spears' to hunt bushbabies which is some evidence to support Tanner's argument about the selection pressures on mothers for innovations in food acquisition. This type of pressure and the increase in the complexity of social interaction including, Tanner argues, females selecting for similar in their mates, is what led to our human sociality and brain development. As far as 'man the hunter' goes, we know that large game hunting is very recent, perhaps only from about 100 000 years ago, so it cannot be what drove our evolution for the previous 5 million years or so. This is an excellent book and I was sorry to find that Prof. Tanner died in 1989 at the age of 56yrs. Though we obviously are discovering new things about our hominid ancestors and our primate cousins all the time, this is a book that needs to be continued to be read as a fine example of why it is essential to include the female perspective and the female role in understanding ourselves and evolution itself.