This one is really useful. Thanks Joe! ***********
Our species has lived as hunter-gatherers for more than 90% of our history, Lee notes. Today's economic inequality goes back thousands of years (see main story, p. 822) but in evolutionary time it is relatively recent. Although some of our great ape cousins and arguably our ape ancestors lived in sometimes brutal hierarchies, humans adopted an egalitarian way of life for all but the last 10,000 years. Achieving and sustaining such egalitarianism is not easy, anthropologists say. "The only way you can avoid hierarchies is that you work very hard to head [them] off," says Christopher Boehm, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Like all animals, humans are born unequal--some run faster, plan better, or make friends more easily than others. And we instinctively want the best for ourselves, even at the expense of others. That sets the stage for some to dominate. View larger version: In this page In a new window Download PowerPoint Slide for Teaching Sharing meat helps reinforce equality among the !Kung. PHOTO: RICHARD B. LEE To find out why humans shunned hierarchies for most of our history, anthropologists have studied living hunter-gatherers around the world, including Native Americans and the Ju/'hoansi/!Kung. Iconic studies of these societies show that boasting and other self-aggrandizing behaviors are not allowed. Offenders are teased, ignored, banned from camp, or, in extreme cases, killed. Humility, humor, and strict protocols about distributing meat helped keep people on an even footing, says Boehm, who has surveyed the ethnographic literature. For example, !Kung people traditionally downplay their accomplishments: A hunter will say he's caught only a small skinny animal, even if it's big and meaty, and his comrades will agree. "You have to demean yourself," Boehm says. full: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6186/824.full Mike B) -- Wobbly times http://wobblytimes.blogspot.com.au/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
