Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

196 J HOW THE MIND WORKSback as soon as it is grazed. Grasslands can feed vast herds of herbivores,who in turn feed carnivores. Evidence of butchery appears in the fossilrecord almost two million years ago, the time of Homo habilis. Huntingmust be even older, since we know that chimpanzees do it, and theiractivities would not leave evidence in the fossil record. Once our ancestorsincreased their hunting, the world opened up. Plant foods are scarceduring the winter at higher altitudes and latitudes, but hunters can survivethere. There are no vegetarian Eskimos.Our ancestors have sometimes been characterized as meek scavengersrather than brave hunters, in keeping with today's machismopuncturingethos. But while hominids may occasionally have scavenged,they probably could not have made a living from it, and if they did, theywere no wimps. Vultures get away with scavenging because they canscan large territories for carcasses and flee on short notice when moreformidable competitors show up. Otherwise, scavenging is not for thefaint of heart. A carcass is jealously guarded by its hunter or an animalfierce enough to have stolen it. It is attractive to microorganisms, whoquickly poison the meat to repel other would-be scavengers. So whenmodern primates or hunter-gatherers come across a carcass, they usuallyleave it alone. In a poster widely available in head shops in the early1970s, one vulture says to the other, "Patience, my ass! I'm going to killsomething." The poster got it right, except for the vulture part: mammalsthat do scavenge, such as hyenas, also hunt.Meat is also a major currency of our social life. Imagine a cow whotries to win the favors of a neighbor by dropping a clump of grass at itsfeet. One could forgive the second cow for thinking, "Thanks, but I canget my own grass." The nutritional jackpot of a felled animal is anothermatter. Miss Piggy once advised, "Never eat anything bigger than youcan lift." A hunter with a dead animal larger than he can eat and about tobecome a putrefying mass is faced with a unique opportunity. Hunting islargely a matter of luck. In the absence of refrigeration, a good place tostore meat for leaner times is in the bodies of other hunters who willreturn the favor when fortunes reverse. This eases the way for the malecoalitions and the extensive reciprocity that are ubiquitous in foragingsocieties.And there are other markets for a hunter's surplus. Having concentratedfood to offer one's offspring changes the relative payoffs for malesbetween investing in their young and competing with other males foraccess to females. The robin bringing a worm to the nestlings reminds us