In today’s New York Times, primatologist Richard Wrangham (at Harvard) is interviewed about his controversial theory of human evolution. Wrangham posits that the invention of cooking food over fire, rather than eating it raw, was the important impetus for the evolution of many hominin traits, including big brains, upright posture, etc. The theory is apparently about to appear in a new book, “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.”
While I don’t find this theory extremely convincing — for one thing, there is no evidence for the use of fire before H. erectus (about 1.5 mya), which was already well advanced in bipedality and big brains. Still, Wrangham is a smart guy and the short interview is well worth reading (including his account of how he ate like a chimp, including raw monkey).
This upcoming book sounds like an interesting read.
Raw monkey? Sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Or at least zoönosis.
Cooking did not make us human. Being human made us cook. All of evolution was “prescribed,” prescheduled and now, in my opinion, is finished with the present biota which, like all those previous, is probably also doomed to extinction.
“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
jadavison.wordpress.com
Wrangham actually argues that cooking was responsible for the transition from australopithecine to Homo. Upright posture is not a part of his argument. So maybe you’ll find this more convincing than you expect.
hmmmm interesting theory