Thursday, March 16, 2006
Peace or War? How Early Humans Behaved
"Depending on which journals you've picked up in recent months, early humans were either peace-loving softies or war-mongering buffoons.
Which theory is to be believed?
A little bit of both, says one archaeologist, who warns against making generalizations when it comes to our long and varied prehistory.
The newest claim concerns Australopithecus afarensis, who lived approximately five million years ago and is one of the first hominids that can be linked directly to our lineage with some certainty. Hardly an expert at tearing other animals limb from limb, scientists say the small and furry creature likely spent most of its time avoiding becoming the lunch of those saber-toothed mammals you see in natural history museums today.
That's a far cry from the spear-wielding image most of the public has of our earliest ancestors, Robert Sussman of Washington University told an audience at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science last month."
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