The Egalitarians - Human and Chimpanzee: An Anthropological View of Social Organization

ISBN-13: 9780521400169 / Angielski / Twarda / 1991 / 312 str.

British Columbia) Margaret Power (Simon Fraser University

Opis

This innovative book challenges the perceived view, based largely on long observation of artificially fed chimpanzees in Gombe and Mahale National Parks, Tanzania, of the normal social behavior of chimpanzees as aggressive, dominance seeking, and fiercely territorial. In polar opposition, all reports from naturalistic (nonfeeding) field studies are of nonaggressive chimpanzees living peacefully on home ranges in fluid, open, nonhierarchical groups. This research has been largely ignored and downgraded by most of the scientific community. By utilizing the data from these studies, the author is able to construct a model of an egalitarian form of social organization, based on a role relationship of mutual dependence among many charismatic chimpanzees of both sexes and other more dependent members. This highly and necessarily positive mututal dependence system is characteristic of both undisturbed chimpanzees and humans who live or lived by the "immediate-return" foraging system.

Recenzje

"Although many may take exception to the conclusions of the author, the book should be useful to a broad range of readers interested in human and nonhuman primate social organization and its evolution." Choice

Spis treści

Foreword A. Montagu; Acknowledgements; Part I. Methods and Prefatory Explanations; Part II. The Human Foragers; Part III. The Changing Social Order; Part IV. The Behaviour of Wild and Provisioned Groups: A Theoretical Analysis; Part V. The Mutual Dependence System; Part VI. The Egalitarian Chimpanzees; Part VII. Probabilities, Possibilities and Half-Heard Whispers; Notes; References; Index.