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I Used It In Anthro

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Posted by Phil.o.Sofir on December 14, 1999 08:15:04 UTC

: : ***Not only that, but it seems to have something to do with bipedalism and our superior brain. Full sterioscopic, long range, color vision. The combination of these with the ability to move the eyes without having to move the head seems to allow a greater judgement of distance, depth, and the tracking of not only movement but the singling out of stationary objects which are important to us. Thus we have a most effective : : means of hunting gathering, and manipulating our environment, along with all our other specialized equipment such as our brain(intelligence), hands(manipulation), speech(communication). : : Of course I am not am expert, but like to get involved, and learn more through posting/reading.

: : We can distinguish by hue, form, relationship, and brightness. In general, they are unsurpassed by any other eyes in the world. : : (Humankind Emerging, Campbell/Loy. Pg.113-115) : ------------ : And evolution (biology) can explain all those developments, even if I can't sometimes. I don't claim to be an expert, this field just interests me. :o)

: I'll add this real quick. Our ancestors (which are the ancestors of modern apes too), found that upon leaving the jungle environment, were confronted with the unfavorable prospect of being unable to gather food in the old way (simply picking fruit, bugs). They were already omnivores, but had to increase their range of diet to include more meat, just to survive. Thus, they had to become hunters. But to do this, they had to compete with already specialized carnivores of the African savanah. Our comparably puny bodies put us at a disadvantage, but we were smarter. Our apelike ancestors were already social animals, and travelled in groups. Now this had to be improved upon, we had to become more specialized. So the increased need for collaborating efforts in a hunt was developed gradually through language (obviously not as complex as it has become today). We became bipedal, which had the double benifit of increasing manipulating ability of our hands (create tools), and seeing above the tall grasses of the plains. We had to be better runners than our jungle ancestors (bipedal condition also facilitated this). As individuals, pre-humans would not have stood a chance against the specialized savanah hunters, but working together as a group, put us over the top. Of course these individual attributes (language, bipedalism, increased hand manipulation) did not just spring up one after through lightning fast evolution. They each evolved gradually, each aspect individual driving the other aspects on. A form of co-evolution took place. This group hunting also is the first insight into what human societies may have been. Thus ideas of society codes, and ethics may be more deeply rooted in us than we think. They may be a lasting evolutionary imprint.

: If you want to learn more about this, Desmond Morris' publications are really good. You may have seen "The human animal" series on the learning channel. Very fascinating.

We discussed the theory of jungle to plain in my anthro class, my proffessor happened to have a ma/phd harvard and liked to keep current. I do remember that he tried to hook a "rider" on that bill that stated human beings could never have been carnivorous scavangers, his reason was that dogs cannot eat broccolli. I could not believe he would say that, almost in a way to preserve some dignity for the human view that we are special and must submit to the relipolitical version of what we once were. I had to tell him that it most probably facilitated our move toward the plain, and as we gained a greater dependence on meat, we began full blown hunting ourselves, part of this was learned by observing over milliniea, how the large predators killed prey while we were waiting until they had had enough to allow us to drive them off of what was left of a kill. I them had to point out that since domesticated, dogs have come to be able to eat so much more than they used to, now, they can eat virtually anything you scrape off the plate, including artificial stuff. Oh, yeah that goes with the part where it was supposed to make all this impossible because we "cant" eat raw/rotten meat... Well, it would not have had time to rot, and we eat raw meat today... Maybe I have a little clue if not all of it!

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