mgorny-nyan (he) :autism:🙀🚂🐧 on Nostr: """ In fact, there's a recent book — its title taking off from all that macho "man ...
"""
In fact, there's a recent book — its title taking off from all that macho "man the hunter" stuff that was popular in the 1970s — called Man the Hunted. Unfortunately, it's spoiled by the political correctness of its stance (the authors think humans are sweet peace-loving folk at heart), but much of what it has to say about the perils of Pliocene and Pleistocene is all too true.
Australopithecines were small — around four feet high [≈ 1.2 m], weighing a hundred pounds [≈ 45 kg] or less even soaking wet. In mixed woodland and savanna country they were exposed to a wide range of predators larger and more fearsome than those of today. There were half a dozen genera of big cats — genera, not species; each genera contained several species. Their very names are enough to induce fear: Vampyrictis, Machairodus, Dinofelis, Megantereon. There was a hyena, Percrocuta, as big as a small lion. There was a giant weasel, Ekorus, nearly two feet high [≈ 0.6 m] at the shoulder; since it could chase down pigs and small horses, it's more than likely that some of our ancestors suffered the ignominious fate of being eaten by weasels. Some of them, it's pretty certain, were killed by birds.
"""
(Derek Bickerton, Adam's Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans)
In fact, there's a recent book — its title taking off from all that macho "man the hunter" stuff that was popular in the 1970s — called Man the Hunted. Unfortunately, it's spoiled by the political correctness of its stance (the authors think humans are sweet peace-loving folk at heart), but much of what it has to say about the perils of Pliocene and Pleistocene is all too true.
Australopithecines were small — around four feet high [≈ 1.2 m], weighing a hundred pounds [≈ 45 kg] or less even soaking wet. In mixed woodland and savanna country they were exposed to a wide range of predators larger and more fearsome than those of today. There were half a dozen genera of big cats — genera, not species; each genera contained several species. Their very names are enough to induce fear: Vampyrictis, Machairodus, Dinofelis, Megantereon. There was a hyena, Percrocuta, as big as a small lion. There was a giant weasel, Ekorus, nearly two feet high [≈ 0.6 m] at the shoulder; since it could chase down pigs and small horses, it's more than likely that some of our ancestors suffered the ignominious fate of being eaten by weasels. Some of them, it's pretty certain, were killed by birds.
"""
(Derek Bickerton, Adam's Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans)