Date: Wed, 10 Apr 96 09:56:18 GMT
Subject: Re: Why Men Hunt



i) Why is it that men hunt, or more precisely, why is it that women don't ?

I just think this is obvious - women look after children.
So men tended to specialise in hunting, women in things which
fitted in better with child care. This specialisation means
that women who don't happen to be suckling an infant at 
that precise moment still don't go hunting.

ii) Why is it that men hunt big game ?

a) Do they ? The stone tools required to butcher a big carcass
are likely to survive in the archeological record. The wooden
ones required to kill and eat a rabbit or a fish aren't.

b) Given that they do, it may be because humans actually have 
little competition at the very top of the food chain. For
instance, when humans arrived in New Zealand, they went on a
massive meat fest, since there were literally no other predators
at the top of the food chain.

AR:
> >I would hazard a guess that without hunting, the basic diet can stop
> >the group starving, but in the long term, it would lead to
> >unacceptably high levels of disease and malnutrition.

> LR:  Unacceptable to whom?

Unnacceptable in that it threatens the medium term survival of the group,
because it becomes susceptible to disease, malnutrition, etc.

Adam.

Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


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