ABSTRACT

The emphasis placed on actively taking large game has waxed and waned, not only in the light of archaeological evidence and its varying scientific interpretations, but in the name of political correctness with respect to the foraging efforts of females vs. Males. Hunting bands crack down moralistically on most types of free-riders, and do so very effectively whenever the free-rides taken are substantial—and detectable. Large game contains far more fat than most other foods available in prehistoric environments, and more fat than small game. Stated baldly, a major subthesis will be that an innate attraction to flesh was important to the evolutionary development of human sociality, which in foraging bands involves significant cooperation above the family level. The social sharing of large game is so well reinforced by moral rules and by social control that there is no necessary reason to assume that altruistic genes are involved in such human cooperation.