ABSTRACT
The hunting hypothesis was deconstructed by Matt Cartmill, a physical anthropologist who has studied the history of human hunting." Easy acceptance in 1912 of the Piltdown man, with its human skull and ape-like jaw, as the "missing link" between humans and apes was facilitated by a preconceived bias about our large brains. Many scenarios concerning the evolution of violence and its biological basis in modern humans have been constructed based upon Man the Hunter. Describing his theory, Richard Wrangham links human hunting to an inherent propensity for violence shared alike by humans and common chimpanzees. E. O. Wilson describes a number of behavioural traits that he claims are found in humans generally and is genetically based human universals. These include: territoriality, aggressive dominance hierarchies, male dominance over females, permanent male–female bonds, matrilineality, and extended maternal care. Sex-biased theories of killer apes and killer humans pervade the popular literature.
