1. Human Behavior in Perspective
Chapter Ten
Human Behavior in Perspective

2. Social Behavior of Human Foragers
Since farming and industrial societies are of such recent origin, we will focus on the behavior of human foragers.
The basic social unit is the band, which usually has 35 to 50 members. The band consists of multiple adult males and females. However, these adults are usually in exclusive male-female relationships.
Women often leave the band of their birth to join a neighboring group upon marriage.
Marjorie Shostak/Anthro-Photo File

3. Humans as Hunters
Although predatory activity is rare in primates, all foraging societies appear to emphasize meat as an important food resource and hunting as an important social activity.
At one time, hunting was thought to be the key to understanding human evolution.
Devore/Anthro-Photo File

4. Woman the Gatherer
Not all anthropologists agree that hunting was the primary factor in the development of hominid society. They note that in modern foraging societies, women often provide the bulk of the calories through gathering.
The archeological evidence also shows that early hominid society may have developed as a scavenger-gathering society.
An understanding of reproductive strategies may be another key element to understanding the evolution of early hominid society.

5. Culture
Culture is learned, nonrandom, systematic behavior and knowledge that is transmitted from person to person and from generation to generation. Humans largely cope with the environment through cultural adjustments.
Other primates appear to have protoculture, or the simplest, most basic aspects of culture.
Examples of protoculture in monkeys include the practice of sweet potato washing among Japanese macaques.
Tool use in chimpanzees is another example of protoculture.

6. Primate Communication
Primates are social animals and are constantly communicating with one another.
Primates in general have a reduced olfactory sense. The use of scent for communication is more common among prosimians and New World monkeys than other primates.
The tactile sense is important, demonstrated by the common primate practice of grooming.
Visual communication is of great importance to primates, including positioning, gestures, and facial expressions.
Primates also use vocal communication.

7. Language
Important characteristics of human language include that it is open, discrete, arbitrary and capable of displacement.
Chimpanzees are incapable of producing the sounds of human speech, so language research is done using American Sign Language and symbol boards.
Based on these studies, many researchers believe that the apes have at least rudimentary language ability.
Other researchers are skeptical of the ape language studies.

8. Intelligence
Primates are able to recognize each other as individuals, distinguish kin from non-kin, and behave differently towards those of different dominance ranks. Primates can remember past interactions and predict the behavior of others. These skills seemed learned and developed from experience.
Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the evolution of intelligence. One hypothesis centers around the challenges that primates face living in social groups.
Another hypothesis focuses on the challenges of exploiting fruit as a food resource.