Missing the Question of the Missing Link
Are humans hard-wired to be ruthlessly competitive or supportive of one another?
The behavior of our ape relatives, known as peaceful vegetarians, once bolstered the view that our actions could not be traced to an impulse to dominate. But in the late 1970s, when chimpanzees were discovered to hunt monkeys and kill each other, they became the poster boys for our violent origins and aggressive instinct.
I use the term “boys” on purpose because the theory was all about males without much attention to the females of the species, who just tagged along evolutionarily. It was hard to escape the notion that we are essentially “killer apes” destined to wage war forever.
Doubts about this macho origin myth have been on the rise, however, culminating in the announcement this past week of the discovery of a fossil of a 4.4 million year old ancestor that may have been gentler than previously thought.
- Our Kinder, Gentler Ancestors
by Frans De Waal
2009-10-03
The missing question: Would killer apes really leave enough of their victims behind?
Obvious answer: Finding a fossil record of the missing link is going to be very difficult; the first thing on our ancestors’ minds after they established a competitive advantage was genocide…
… and after we ate their flesh we fashioned weapons from their bones.
