Philip wrote:
> Wayne Wynn wrote regarding Robert W. Sussman's "Man the Hunted: Primates,
> Predators and Human Evolution":
>   
>> Excerpt from 
>> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/wuis-th020305.php:
>>
>>     'Man the Hunter' theory is debunked in new book\
>>     ...
>>
>>     But what Sussman and Hart discovered is that Australopithecus
>>     afarensis was not dentally pre-adapted to eat meat. "It 
>> didn't have
>>     the sharp shearing blades necessary to retain and cut such foods,"
>>     Sussman says. "These early humans simply couldn't eat 
>> meat. If they
>>     couldn't eat meat, why would they hunt?"
>>
>>
>> A major point is that humans are not primarily meat-eaters by 
>> evolution. 
>> It appears to be putting a lot of inference on one ancestor who lived 
>> between 5 and 3.5 million years ago.
>>
>> Anyone have more informed knowledge about this?
>>     
>
> While the "Man the Hunter" model is indeed very much in debate, there seems
> to be a fairly wide consensus that Australopithecines likely ate some
> non-plant foods.

I was unable to access the target article, but this "debunking" seems 
just silly.  First, as the name implies, Australopithecus was more ape 
than hominid.  To call them "early humans" is already to commit a major 
distortion.  It's almost certainly true that Australopithecus, like 
other apes, was not *primarily* a meat eater, and almost certainly not 
much of a hunter.  The important thing is that, as we trace our probable 
lineage from Australopithecus to Homo Sapiens, we see a clear trajectory 
of increasing meat-eating, and adaptation to it (decrease in gut-brain 
ratio), as well as adaptation (physical, cognitive, and social) to 
hunting.  It's what has happened *between* Australopithecus and us that 
matters.  I recommend Craig Stanford's book, _The Hunting Apes_.

Todd Moody
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