Gathering Stories for Hunting Human Nature

A review essay on Helen E. Fisher's The Sex Contract: The Evolution of Human Behavior (New York: William Morrow, 1982); Nancy M. Tanner's On Becoming Human (New York: Cambridge U Press, 1981); Sarah B. Hrdy's The Woman That Never Evolved (Cambridge: Harvard U Press, 1981); Peter J. Wilson's Man the Promising Primate: The Conditions of Human Evolution (New Haven: Yale U Press, 1980); Sydney L. Mellen's The Evolution of Love (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1981 [see listings for each of the above works in IRPS No. 32]); & C. Owen Lovejoy's "The Origin of Man" (Science, 1981, 211, 23 Jan, 341-3, 45). These works investigate the history of the human species, focusing on human nature, M-F relations, & dietary, social, & sexual behavior; however they fail to take into account revolutions in physical anthropology during the 1960s & 1970s, & early writings by women about women & evolution. Fischer omits new evidence from paleontology & molecular evolution, arguing for a view of prehistoric woman as gatherers who gradually became "sexual athletes" in order to facilitate pair bonding. Tanner, with a social anthropological perspective, elaborates on the woman-as- gatherer theme, & the economic contributions, social bonding, & sexual selections actively made by women. Hrdy supports the idea of an active, independent F, but offers little evidence from paleontology, ecology, or comparative anatomy. M authors Wilson, Mellen, & Lovejoy also ignore recent information from these fields, fail to address views of women written by women, & project typical Western M fantasies onto evolution. Lovejoy's work, in particular, is at odds with the known facts regarding the activity & mobility of all primate Fs. Theories about the past must be internally consistent & recognize existing information; most of these works fail in these respects. K. Hyatt