Killer ape theory
Encyclopedia
The killer ape theory or killer ape hypothesis is the theory that war
and interpersonal aggression
was the driving force behind human evolution
. It was originated by Raymond Dart
in the 1950s; later it was developed further in African Genesis by Robert Ardrey
in 1961.
According to the killer ape theory, the ancestors of humans were distinguished from other primate
species by their greater aggressiveness. Furthermore, according to the theory, this aggression remains within humanity, which retains many murder
ous instincts.
The theory gained notoriety for suggesting that the urge to do violence
was a fundamental part of human psychology
, The hunting hypothesis
is often associated with the theory, because of similarities and because Robert Ardrey has developed both.
It is scrutinized whether present-day behavior like e.g. the defense of one’s own piece of land, palpability or even murder base on ancestors of humankind. Accordingly, the killer ape is a notably belligerent species on which our instincts might be rooted, because this very ancestor could establish itself due to its special aggression.
As founder of this thesis, Raymond A. Dart
(1893–1988) dealt with this issue in his professional article The predatory transition from ape to man, 1953.
The title is misleading; contrary to popular belief, humans did not, in fact, evolve from today's modern apes - humans and modern apes split off from a common ancestor, who was an archaic species of ape such as Dryopithecus
.
refers to the Australian anatomist Grafton Elliot Smith
(1871–1937), a specialist concerning anthropology.
The question is what exactly could cause the evolutionary step from ape to human. Basically, there are three different versions: the increase of the brains’ size, the acquisition of speech or the upright motion. Smith
excludes this last option; otherwise the traditional erect gibbon would be a possible ancestor of humans. For him, the relevant point was the bigger brain. It would have made the bipedal movement possible and would have accelerated the enlargement through common use of its hands, which are no more needed to walk.
Until Raymond Dart
found the Australopithecus africanus
(1925a), this controversial problem could not be solved.
”, was a first proof of bipedal apes. Robert Broom
(1866–1951), primarily a Scottish physician, who spent his life as an archeologist in Australia since 1892, agreed to this statement, too. Five years later he decided to spend the rest of his life in South Africa. His excavations from 1946 pointed into the same direction, when he also discovered bones from the Australopithecus africanus
.
However, further examinations showed that, in these cases, the size of the brain was not to be equated with the evolution’s level. In fact, it is much more popular to connect the accomplishment of more and more complex movements directly with an evolutionary response, which caused the brain to grow.
Both Dart
and Broom
, as well as Charles Darwin
(1809–1882), agreed that this new type of locomotion brought a remarkable advantage in comparison to other co specifics, to rival animals or to the quarry.
These findings showed explicit cracks and fractures, which are likely to be done on purpose. Additionally, there were clubs, bludgeons and spears formed by the long limb bones or the horns of antelopes. This new special weapon leaves small punctured, round and triangular holes in skulls, depending on how it was formed.
This new development in building weapons shows a clear increase concerning the aggression of the animals.
carries that issue to extremes and equips this new type of ‘carnivorous and killing’ apes (“proto-men” in his own words) with weapons. Furthermore he describes them as organized in a tribe, so they were able to hunt bigger animals. The ability of making fire and remarkable social skills prompt Dart
to bring them more in line with humans.
Observations from Sgt. H. B. Potter (Zululand, South Africa) show that this kind of development is still up to date as it is mentioned in The predatory transition from ape to man by Raymond Dart
. He describes a pride of baboons that hunts antelopes. Indeed, he admits that this depends on seasonal circumstances, because nutrition was rare. Nevertheless, he proves explicit behavior.
argues that there has always been an ambition to eating meat: grubs and insects, bigger mammals and even human flesh (i.e. distinctive cannibalism
) are the results.
A so called deficit from “animal proteins” has to be compensated, so consuming meat is essential to survive.
article Dr. Alan H. Kelso shows how few scientists accepted the new ideas of Dart
and Ardrey
. Not only did Dart require a long time to publish his work, but also the epilogue contains notices like: “Professor Dart’s thesis that the South African apemen, at the stage they were found, were omnivorous, must be considered as proven. Of course, they were only the ancestors of the modern Bushmen and Negroes, and of nobody else.”
Another obvious evidence would be the rejection of Dart’s
thesis by a scientific convention at Livingstone
(Zambia
, South-Africa), what led Ardrey
into writing his book African Genesis. He felt himself forced to defend the opinion of his mentor.
Just as well, the ethologist Konrad Lorenz
showed interest before and brought out his book On Aggression
(1963). In his introduction he describes rivaling butterfly fish, which defend their territory that leads over to the question, if humans, too, tend to intraspecific behavior.
The Seville Statement on Violence
, released under US auspices in 1986, stated that while patterns of human aggression may be inherited, warfare need not be a necessary consequence.
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
and interpersonal aggression
Aggression
In psychology, as well as other social and behavioral sciences, aggression refers to behavior between members of the same species that is intended to cause humiliation, pain, or harm. Ferguson and Beaver defined aggressive behavior as "Behavior which is intended to increase the social dominance of...
was the driving force behind human evolution
Human evolution
Human evolution refers to the evolutionary history of the genus Homo, including the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species and as a unique category of hominids and mammals...
. It was originated by Raymond Dart
Raymond Dart
Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominid closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the province...
in the 1950s; later it was developed further in African Genesis by Robert Ardrey
Robert Ardrey
Robert Ardrey was an American playwright and screenwriter who returned to his academic training in anthropology and the behavioral sciences in the 1950s....
in 1961.
According to the killer ape theory, the ancestors of humans were distinguished from other primate
Primate
A primate is a mammal of the order Primates , which contains prosimians and simians. Primates arose from ancestors that lived in the trees of tropical forests; many primate characteristics represent adaptations to life in this challenging three-dimensional environment...
species by their greater aggressiveness. Furthermore, according to the theory, this aggression remains within humanity, which retains many murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ous instincts.
The theory gained notoriety for suggesting that the urge to do violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
was a fundamental part of human psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, The hunting hypothesis
Hunting hypothesis
In paleoanthropology, the hunting hypothesis is the hypothesis that human evolution was primarily influenced by the activity of hunting for relatively large and fast animals, and that the activity of hunting distinguished human ancestors from other primates....
is often associated with the theory, because of similarities and because Robert Ardrey has developed both.
Definition
The expression killer ape does not mean an outstanding aggressive kind of ape, in fact the term is about the anthropological analysis of human aggression.It is scrutinized whether present-day behavior like e.g. the defense of one’s own piece of land, palpability or even murder base on ancestors of humankind. Accordingly, the killer ape is a notably belligerent species on which our instincts might be rooted, because this very ancestor could establish itself due to its special aggression.
As founder of this thesis, Raymond A. Dart
Raymond Dart
Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominid closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the province...
(1893–1988) dealt with this issue in his professional article The predatory transition from ape to man, 1953.
The title is misleading; contrary to popular belief, humans did not, in fact, evolve from today's modern apes - humans and modern apes split off from a common ancestor, who was an archaic species of ape such as Dryopithecus
Dryopithecus
Dryopithecus was a genus of apes that is known from Eastern Africa into Eurasia during the late Miocene period. The first species of Dryopithecus was discovered at the site of Saint-Gaudens, Haute-Garonne, France, in 1856...
.
The step from ape to human
DartRaymond Dart
Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominid closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the province...
refers to the Australian anatomist Grafton Elliot Smith
Grafton Elliot Smith
Sir Grafton Elliot Smith, FRS FRCP was an Australian anatomist and a proponent of the hyperdiffusionist view of prehistory.-Professional career:Smith was born in Grafton, New South Wales...
(1871–1937), a specialist concerning anthropology.
The question is what exactly could cause the evolutionary step from ape to human. Basically, there are three different versions: the increase of the brains’ size, the acquisition of speech or the upright motion. Smith
Grafton Elliot Smith
Sir Grafton Elliot Smith, FRS FRCP was an Australian anatomist and a proponent of the hyperdiffusionist view of prehistory.-Professional career:Smith was born in Grafton, New South Wales...
excludes this last option; otherwise the traditional erect gibbon would be a possible ancestor of humans. For him, the relevant point was the bigger brain. It would have made the bipedal movement possible and would have accelerated the enlargement through common use of its hands, which are no more needed to walk.
Until Raymond Dart
Raymond Dart
Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominid closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the province...
found the Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus africanus was an early hominid, an australopithecine, who lived between 2–3 million years ago in the Pliocene. In common with the older Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus was slenderly built, or gracile, and was thought to have been a direct ancestor of modern humans. Fossil...
(1925a), this controversial problem could not be solved.
The "Taung Child"
This approximately 2.5 million year old cranial bone, also known as “Taung ChildTaung Child
The Taung Child — or Taung Baby — is the fossilized skull of a young Australopithecus africanus individual. It was discovered in 1924 by quarrymen working for the Northern Lime Company in Taung, South Africa...
”, was a first proof of bipedal apes. Robert Broom
Robert Broom
Professor Robert Broom was a Scottish South African doctor and paleontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University of Glasgow...
(1866–1951), primarily a Scottish physician, who spent his life as an archeologist in Australia since 1892, agreed to this statement, too. Five years later he decided to spend the rest of his life in South Africa. His excavations from 1946 pointed into the same direction, when he also discovered bones from the Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus africanus was an early hominid, an australopithecine, who lived between 2–3 million years ago in the Pliocene. In common with the older Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus was slenderly built, or gracile, and was thought to have been a direct ancestor of modern humans. Fossil...
.
However, further examinations showed that, in these cases, the size of the brain was not to be equated with the evolution’s level. In fact, it is much more popular to connect the accomplishment of more and more complex movements directly with an evolutionary response, which caused the brain to grow.
Both Dart
Raymond Dart
Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominid closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the province...
and Broom
Robert Broom
Professor Robert Broom was a Scottish South African doctor and paleontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University of Glasgow...
, as well as Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
(1809–1882), agreed that this new type of locomotion brought a remarkable advantage in comparison to other co specifics, to rival animals or to the quarry.
The findings of Makapan
Osseous findings at a limestone cave located in Makapan, South-Africa, led to the question to what extent this advantage, in combination with a more and more improved skill using tools, affected the behavior of the apes.These findings showed explicit cracks and fractures, which are likely to be done on purpose. Additionally, there were clubs, bludgeons and spears formed by the long limb bones or the horns of antelopes. This new special weapon leaves small punctured, round and triangular holes in skulls, depending on how it was formed.
This new development in building weapons shows a clear increase concerning the aggression of the animals.
The "proto-men"
DartRaymond Dart
Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominid closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the province...
carries that issue to extremes and equips this new type of ‘carnivorous and killing’ apes (“proto-men” in his own words) with weapons. Furthermore he describes them as organized in a tribe, so they were able to hunt bigger animals. The ability of making fire and remarkable social skills prompt Dart
Raymond Dart
Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominid closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the province...
to bring them more in line with humans.
Observations from Sgt. H. B. Potter (Zululand, South Africa) show that this kind of development is still up to date as it is mentioned in The predatory transition from ape to man by Raymond Dart
Raymond Dart
Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominid closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the province...
. He describes a pride of baboons that hunts antelopes. Indeed, he admits that this depends on seasonal circumstances, because nutrition was rare. Nevertheless, he proves explicit behavior.
The eating habits
Concerning the eating habits from then until now, DartRaymond Dart
Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominid closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the province...
argues that there has always been an ambition to eating meat: grubs and insects, bigger mammals and even human flesh (i.e. distinctive cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
) are the results.
A so called deficit from “animal proteins” has to be compensated, so consuming meat is essential to survive.
Reception
The comment written by the editor of Dart’sRaymond Dart
Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominid closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the province...
article Dr. Alan H. Kelso shows how few scientists accepted the new ideas of Dart
Raymond Dart
Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominid closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the province...
and Ardrey
Robert Ardrey
Robert Ardrey was an American playwright and screenwriter who returned to his academic training in anthropology and the behavioral sciences in the 1950s....
. Not only did Dart require a long time to publish his work, but also the epilogue contains notices like: “Professor Dart’s thesis that the South African apemen, at the stage they were found, were omnivorous, must be considered as proven. Of course, they were only the ancestors of the modern Bushmen and Negroes, and of nobody else.”
Another obvious evidence would be the rejection of Dart’s
Raymond Dart
Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominid closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the province...
thesis by a scientific convention at Livingstone
Livingstone, Zambia
Livingstone or Maramba is a historic colonial city and present capital of the Southern Province of Zambia, a tourism centre for the Victoria Falls lying north of the Zambezi River, and a border town with road and rail connections to Zimbabwe on the other side of the Falls...
(Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
, South-Africa), what led Ardrey
Robert Ardrey
Robert Ardrey was an American playwright and screenwriter who returned to his academic training in anthropology and the behavioral sciences in the 1950s....
into writing his book African Genesis. He felt himself forced to defend the opinion of his mentor.
Just as well, the ethologist Konrad Lorenz
Konrad Lorenz
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch...
showed interest before and brought out his book On Aggression
On Aggression
On Aggression is a book by ethologist Konrad Lorenz written in 1963. As he writes in the prologue, "the subject of this book is aggression, that is to say the fighting instinct in beast and man which is directed against members of the same species." According to Lorenz, animals, particularly...
(1963). In his introduction he describes rivaling butterfly fish, which defend their territory that leads over to the question, if humans, too, tend to intraspecific behavior.
The Seville Statement on Violence
Seville Statement on Violence
The Seville Statement on Violence is a statement on violence that was adopted by an international meeting of scientists, convened by the Spanish National Commission for UNESCO, in Seville, Spain, on 16 May 1986. It was subsequently adopted by UNESCO at the twenty-fifth session of the General...
, released under US auspices in 1986, stated that while patterns of human aggression may be inherited, warfare need not be a necessary consequence.
See also
- Homo necansHomo necansHomo Necans: the Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth is a book on ancient Greek religion and mythology by Walter Burkert, which won the Weaver Award for Scholarly Literature, awarded by the Ingersoll Foundation, in 1992...
- On AggressionOn AggressionOn Aggression is a book by ethologist Konrad Lorenz written in 1963. As he writes in the prologue, "the subject of this book is aggression, that is to say the fighting instinct in beast and man which is directed against members of the same species." According to Lorenz, animals, particularly...
- Demonic males
- Hunting hypothesisHunting hypothesisIn paleoanthropology, the hunting hypothesis is the hypothesis that human evolution was primarily influenced by the activity of hunting for relatively large and fast animals, and that the activity of hunting distinguished human ancestors from other primates....
- Congo (film)Congo (film)Congo is a 1995 action adventure film, based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. It was directed by Frank Marshall and stars Laura Linney, Dylan Walsh, Tim Curry, Ernie Hudson, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Grant Heslov, and Joe Don Baker. The film was released on June 9, 1995 by...