| Popis: |
It has been hypothesized that key aspects of human male upper limb and facial morphology evolved through selective pressures related to fistfighting. Based on the primatological, archaeological, and ethnographic evidence, I argue these proposals are misguided. An important trend during recent hominin evolution was a decline in upper body strength and facial robusticity, coinciding in part with the rise of complex tools and weaponry. Consistent with this, dueling with weapons is a more a salient form of male-male conflict and conflict management than fistfighting across contemporary hunter-gatherer societies. Among foragers in the Standard-Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS), fistfighting is comparatively rare, while wrestling is widespread, and dueling with weapons falls in between. I emphasize that hypotheses regarding human evolutionary history should be evaluated carefully against the cross-species, cross-cultural, and historical evidence. |
