Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham

Humans adopted cooking. Then evolution move to favor those that cooked food. Cooking food allowed humans to devote fewer resources to the digestive system and more to other areas. This helped humans to later dominate. Today there are some people that advocate "raw" diets. However, these diets are rare and often result in caloric deficiencies. They also often require use of food that has been processed in some ways. Humanity's ancestors were likely able to live on this raw food, but today, people are quick to move towards cooking.

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King

It was once common for anthropologists to grade societies based on their evolution. They would evolve from more primitive to more advanced states. Any societies that differed from the western standard were thought to be primitive. This book looks at the anthropology of the anthropologists as they adopted cultural relativism. Different cultures and peoples do things differently. This is not necessarily good or bad, just different. We may be shocked at some practices of others, just as they would abhor some of ours. Scientists should seek to understand. This puts being "progressive" or "conservative" on it's head. We are evolving just as others are evolving. Some of our "progressive" behaviors have likely been held by others with conservative views. This book focuses on the anthropologists and their struggles to break from the mainstream to adopt a relativistic view of other cultures. 

The Inca: Lost Civilizations

The Inca: Lost Civilizations by Kevin Lane

The Inca are an intriguing population. They had built up a great empire that only seemed to last a short time before it succumbed to the Spaniard guns and germs. The Inca had very little intercourse with other populations (in part due to their geography). Thus they developed many of the hallmarks of humanity (such as writing) in their own fashion. With the vast elevation changes in an equatorial region, they had a variety of climatic regions in a small geographic area.

This book on the Inca is written from a very academic style. Anthropologists and archeologists are given abundant credit for their insights. There is little concrete narrative on the life of Inca, but rather a scientific dissection of the various aspects of their society. This leads to some repetition with parts that fit in multiple categorizations.

Some areas that I found interesting included the fact that the Inca empire was relatively short lived. There were other civilizations that had grown up before. The Inca unified some close regions and had a strong empire for only a few generations. They also used means of moving people around to keep them in order. Road networks were fairly well established as was agriculture (especially potatoes).  The religion seems to not be very well understood, but it did include some human sacrifice. Dynastic leadership was quite complex with multiple aspects of inheritance and old clans "hanging on".

The Modern Scholar: History of Ancient Greece

The Modern Scholar: History of Ancient Greece by Eric H. Cline

The Minoan people of Crete appear to be the first cultural Greeks. The people spread to Greece and later spread to other areas with "colonies". Turkey and Sicily all had Greek connections. Sparta and Athens were connected to different areas. Many of the stories we hear of Greece have some basis in truth. Troy was uncovered and found to have many layers. (However, we likely guessed wrong at first.) There are still a number of guesses we have made regarding ancient Greece. What new things will we discover?

Looks like I also listened to these lectures a decade ago

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon

How did the female human body get to be the way it is? What did that do to help humans to grow and dominate. The author looks at the female body from both a biological and cultural perspective. Historical "Eves" were identified that were the first to have certain traits. At the start, these are millions of years old (such as live birth and producing milk). The book progresses to the more modern adaption. Cultural evolution such as gynecology, mating and sexism also come into play. The author looks at the historical sexist practice as having a mixed bag of benefits. (Cultural norms that had women eat last made it difficult on pregnant women. However, other practices ma have helped women. Today, these are seen as lest valuable. 

The author tries to tie in trans and gay women, but this ends up muddying things up. (These are historic genetic dead ends. Though perhaps that is the evolutionary point - they could be passed on when people lived differently than how they may have felt. However, noe people live how they desire - but also have more ability to have medical means to reproduce.) 

Exploration of non-child bear women is interesting. There are a few hypotheses. The grandma can help pass on information and assist in caring for younger children. The author seems to lean towards the "life extension" view. Humans have been able to extend their life, but the child bearing limit still remains. This has then given people the social advantage.

The book goes to extensive detail of differentiators between men and women and specific traits that help with reproduction. There are many great details. While many conclusions are very settled, there are some that are plenty of areas that are still up for debate. I am most hesitant to accept anything that our current cultural norms and practices are the ideal biological way of evolutionary reproduction.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

There is a base way of extinction that happens as part of evolutionary systems. There are also extreme factors that contribute to mass-extinction events. Mankind is contributing to one of the newest mass events. Climate is changing so fast that habitats become inhabitable before species can adapt. Species can also fall prey to encroachment of habitats (via farming, cities, roadways or other modern development). The rapid movement of goods and people has also contributed to mass events. (White nose powder fungus contributed to a mass kill-off of bats. This may have spread rapidly by humans faster than bats could evolve defenses.) There are also cases of animals have evolved with minimal predators and thus have been simply killed off by humans for meat or sport.

The book mixes some general history of evolution with examples to raise the alarm about the negative impact of mankind on our world ecosystem. Evolution can lead to resilience. However, the species that are able to evolve the fastest are not necessarily the most beneficial. What are we to do?

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age

Çatalhöyük,Pompeii,Angkor and Cahokia were both significant cities in their time. They all disappeared for various reasons. 

Pompeii (in modern Italy) was destroyed by volcano a couple millenia ago. The environs were uninhabitable and the area was abonded. This was in important part of the Roman empire at the time and we have contemporary historical records of the time.

Angkor, in modern Cambodia was the base of Khmer empire. It was a vast city with extensive infrastructure. After hundreds of years of strength, the city began to fade until it was sacked a half millennium ago. However, the central area remained a religious shrine. A number of reasons for the decline were speculated, included repeated climatic hits that wore on the region as well as changes in religious practices that changed the power structure. 

Çatalhöyükin modern Turkey flourished around 7000 BC. Much less is understood about this city than others. Most of the understanding is speculated based on the architectural discoveries. These discoveries tend to be heavily influenced by the opinions of the discoverers. It appears very egalitarian with little monumental architecture. However, there could be a hierarchy we just don't understand. 

Cahokia lies near modern St Louis and reached its apex around a millennium ago. It appeared to be a fairly large city at the time. Some people believe it was primarily a religious, rather than a commercial center. The weather conditions may have led to the eventual abandonment. 

The author ends by comparing these cities to the many cities that have changed in society. Cities are often not instantly abandoned, but gradually fade away. There may be many ebbs and flows in the process. After the Dot com bust in 2000, San Francisco looked to be dead. However, it recovered with a vengeance over the next two decades. Perhaps the midwestern cities like Detroit are gradually on their way to nothingness. People have been changing their living conditions for thousands of years and will continue to do so.

Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding

Humans were never meant to exercise. They do, however, get great benefit from physical activity. This conundrum is explained by the advances in human society. Hunter gatherers require a large amount of energy to obtain their food. (Sometimes, a hunter might run dozens of miles to chase prey.) It is beneficial to minimize this expenditure whenever possible. Yet because the expenditures are so great, the body has used this forms of physical activity to help optimize provide benefits systems. Today, we have managed to eliminate almost all need for physical activity. However, are bodies are still configured to require this physical activity to carry out some of its "repair" mechanisms. Thus, the need for voluntary exercise has been born.

What does exercise help? The general answer is "a lot". There have been numerous scientific studies performed. Moderate levels of exercise seem to be beneficial in preventing various diseases and increasing overall health. More exercise seems to add even more benefits. Extreme levels of exercise (like ultra-marathons) may show some decrease in immune response. Aerobic exercise and strength training both seem to be beneficial, though for different things. A mixture of both is optimal, though if just doing one, aerobic exercise seems to get a greater bang for the buck.

One challenge with exercise studies in general is that they don't easily fit in the paradigm of scientific studies. The short term studies may rely on people reporting activity or are narrowly focused on a single outcome for a level of physical activity. Long term studies can be useful, but also require a lot of self reporting to be done. It is also important to look at the numbers behind studies (as there may be groups with very small sample sizes.) There are some interesting studies out there, including one that shows taking antioxidants may reduce the positive antioxidant impacts of exercise. Our bodies can do interesting things.

Exercise can be helpful in weight loss as long as increased calories are not consumed to compensate. One of the challenges is the body itself. It responds to needs by managing the number of calories that are burned. Thus, diet is often more beneficial for losing weight and keeping it off. 

Prescribing a healthy diet, enough sleep and regular exercise would probably do more to improve human health than any medication that could be prescribed. Alas, getting people to exercise can be a challenge. We often mandate physical activity for young children, but feel we can't do it for adults. Some people enjoy individual activity, while many others thrive on the comradery of group fitness. Fat-shaming is seen as something bad. There are many data points that are parroted out there that don't necessarily have scientific validation. (10,000 steps a day was a standard set by a pedometer maker.) Different people respond better to different physical activities. How do we help people to improve their health?

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Sapiens takes the "far view" of analyzing the human species as if it where any other species. How did humans come to dominate? What about the other similar species (like Neanderthals) that previously existed. While it was politically correct to say that humans all came from the same genetic stock, it also appears that there was mixing with "related species" in different regions, giving some ethnicities small amounts of unique genes. However, modern humans managed to wipe these groups out as well as pretty much any new megafauna they encountered. The few that did survive were most often domesticated.

Humans were built to be hunter gatherers. However, they stumbled upon agriculture. At first cultivation seemed to help make lives easier. However, it soon led to all sorts of problems. New ailments appeared. Greater surpluses led to larger populations, which required greater cultivation. More people were living together, thus requiring people to get along. Religion and other common beliefs were a tool to help groups live together. (though it appears that some religious practices may have started before agricultural.) 

Religion is typically a common set of beliefs that helps tie a society together. Many institutions that we don't consider religions (such as Soviet communism) also server this purpose. People need a shared underlying belief set in order to regulate their society. Today "western liberalism" and "money" are two overriding principals that help tie the world together. (As much as many anti-western groups would hate to admit it, they are framing their "rebellion" in the western beliefs.) Most people in history have lived in large Empires. These often tolerate local customs, yet have some sort of overarching common belief. 

The actual context of the common belief is not nearly as important as the simple fact that it is shared. Some societies held that people were born different and different groups had different rights. Today, we tend to believe that all are equal. Both are just "beliefs". Neither is biologically right or wrong, they are just beliefs. It is also impossible to "regulate" things as "unnatural". Things can "happen" or they can't. People can't run at the speed of light. It is just not biologically possible. Something such as homosexual behavior can be done. Societies may condone it or support it based on their common belief set.

The rise of society is a great advantage for the human society, but not necessarily for individual humans. Similarly, the domestication of animals has allowed animals such as cows to spread their genetic material, yet individual cows live a fairly miserable existing. Wheat was able to have its genetic material spread across the world through agriculture. Even things such as "arms races" have an ability to propagate themselves without benefitting the individual countries. 

The book moved on to discuss economy. The idea of "credit" is predicated on the expectation that life will be better in the future. Economy helps for "advancement" of society. However, happiness has remained relatively constant. Even with many material innovations, the only real way we have improved happiness is through drugs like prozac. The idea that we cannot alter our happiness by material things is present in buddhism teach about the futility of seeking happiness. However, this has been twisted to be a quest for "inner happiness" in today's world. The state and the economy have taken over the family as a source for support for society. While family members would previously care for their aged, now the government provides pensions. We also have various identity groups (such as country, language, sexual orientation, fans of a music group) We feel a bond to those in "our group", even if we have never met them.

Today humans have moved beyond "evolution" to "intelligent design". Plant and animal breeders have helped nudge species to more quickly evolve to have more desired traits. Now scientists have even greater abilities to genetically engineer living beings to have certain characteristics  that they may have never had naturally. 

This may be one of the greatest dangers. We may talk about fears of resource depletion. However, mankind has had the ability to adapt to use different resources. It is the unknown that may be more of a challenge. Science fiction predicted vast space travel networks, but missed the internet. The future where scientists can manipulate people could pose some of the biggest challenges. What if our ability to manipulate humans exceeds our ability to control what we have done? Will mankind cause irreparable damage or even wipe man off the face of the earth?

The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World

Wayfinders started out as a series of lectures in Canada. The book explores bits of "wisdom" of ancient cultures. Polynesians could navigate across vast oceans long before the Europeans could. They used many different pieces of information to piece together the complete mental "map" of where they had been in order to find where they are going. There are other cultures that treat the land as an integral part of life. Other cultures had various rituals and customs that helped unite them as people as well as sustain the life in the world. Our view of many of these ancient cultures is often quite incomplete. We see the society after they have spent time in contact with western culture. This has caused them to adapt their ways. 

The has respect for ancient skills and wisdom. However, he does not idolize them as is often the case. He acknowledges that they had a way of wisdom and a certain set of skills. They are not necessarily better or worse than others, just different. It is valuable to retain these bits of wisdom rather than attempt to force everyone into the current mold of western civilization.

Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge : A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution

If you look hard enough you can find anything you want. In food of the gods, the author finds hallucinogenic mushrooms are the key point to the evolution of men. Hallucinogens are also a key component of a female-based partnership society. (Thus they are condemned by domineering, male-based society.) He sees the drugs as an important step that helped humans to progress from being "mere apes" to the higher intelligence they have today. Some cultures in the Amazon are able to hold on this "shaman" culture. He is enamored with the drug induced states and would love for society to have a greater respect for plants and psychoactive states they can provide.
He criticizes the drug policy of today for not performing more research into positive uses of drugs. This does seem to be a valid concern. However, he takes it further. Much further. For him drug policy is a means by which the male "dominate" group can assert their dominance over the female partnership society. Drug policy is how those in power stay in power. They pick drugs that they like and restrict other drugs so that they can get a cut of the revenue from them. 

His theories (such as "stoned ape" evolution do tend to be extreme. However, when the book does venture away from theory, it has some interesting content. A section describes the "drug history" of the world. The new world had a lot more available drugs than the old world. Some drugs like alcohol and tobacco assumed a regular place in civilized society. Others, including marijuana and heroine were shunned. Others, such as coffee, chocolate and sugar are not even considered to be drugs, yet they have significant psychoactive impact on humans. It is an interesting read that tries to make sense of the way that drugs have evolved to be placed in different buckets in our culture. It almost makes up for the extremeness of the general theories of hallucinogenics being the source of most human advancement. 

Humanimal

Humanimal looks at humans from an "animal" perspective. How is it that humans came to dominate the world? Use of tools helped, but many other animals have tools. The ability to pass on knowledge from generation to generation ends up being a main factor. He spends a good chunk of time looking at corollary behaviors in other animals. He cautions that people should not justify a human behavior simply because a similar behavior exists in nature. Animals may appear to rape and murder, but without a communicable thought process, there is no way to directly compare. He also spends time looking at sexual behaviors. There are a number of different reproductive mechanisms out there. There are also many instances of animals (including humans) engaging in sexual activity that will not produce offspring. Why is that so? There are some conclusions to that and the question of how homosexuality propagates. He dubunks many explanations, and cautiously presents his preferred explanations. (For example, homosexuals tend to come from larger families.) There are some areas that he decides are not worth touching, and just condemns them out of hand. There are some interesting bits, but it is overall an easily forgettable book.

Close Encounters with Humankind

Close Encounters with Humankind is a book of paleoanthropologic essays that originally appeared in a Korean magazine. The explore the evolution of man and the nearest relatives. Man is unique among other animals in that language is used extensively to pass on long term knowledge. The role of fathers and grandparents also sets humans apart from other animals. With most animals, mothers tend to have sole responsibility for raising the young. However, human fathers stay around. Longer lifespans have also allowed grandparents to continue to play a role.
Evolution and culture have worked together to help bring about change among humans. Tightly packed cities have allowed for greater sharing of knowledge and talents. It has also allowed greater numbers of diseases to spread. Agriculture has been arguable one of the greatest and worst things to happen to humankind. It allowed the growth of culture and cities. It allowed or a rapid population boom. It also allowed for property ownership, war and disease. Similar to the transportation and communication improvements of today, there are great costs of the great advancements.

Affluence Without Abundance: The Disappearing World of the Bushmen

Affluence Without Abundance is an exploration of the life of the Kalahari Bushmen. They are one of the oldest civilizations still present on earth. They are also very tied to their place, with two different groups not too far apart showing almost no signs of intermixing. Studying them became the "in thing" to do, especially after the realization that their lifestyle truly could be a life of "leisure", with very little "working" time required.

The Bushmen have very little concept of history. They are concerned with the "now". They are also perfectly willing to adapt to the tools and items they have at their disposal. They had developed a means of poisoning animals using the contents of a small "nut" fallen from a tree. This enabled them to kill larger animals with smaller bows. The meat could provide a significant part of their diet. They also gathered various fruits from trees. However, the growth tended to be seasonal. Only a time after the rains would their be abundant fruits to gather. Human agriculture in the area has fenced off many of their roaming areas and finally put an end to a lifestyle that had lasted for millennia.

The bushman had a number of cultural traditions that were needed for their nomadic life. Big meat kills were shared via an orderly means. Gifts were given to help improve relationships. The number of material goods were limited to what they could carry. Their nomadic lifestyle did not dispose themselves to farming and ranching. However have found themselves forced into the the agricultural life, working for white farmers or other African groups.

The God's Must Be Crazy showcased the "primitive" bushman life. Some self-appointed critics criticized the inaccurate portrayal of modern Bushmen and the poor salaries they received for the movie. However, the Bushmen themselves liked the movie and found the salary more than enough. (In fact, they found it difficult as the extra income brought with it extra demands from others. There are other bushmen that "dress up" as their primitive ancestors in order to provide a show for tourists. However, for the most part, hunter gathering culture is gone.

Today, the Bushmen hunter-gatherer culture is pretty much gone. The fences put up by farmers and ranchers and the sectioning off of land make that lifestyle nearly impossible. They were only able to endure this long because their unforgiving environment prevented the incursion of agriculture. Now, man has learned to tame even more difficult environments and take over the land. Most of them live in poverty. The knowledge of hunting and gathering has gradually faded. Their lifestyle "was not simply based on their having few needs easily satisfied; it also depending on no one being substantially richer or more powerful than anyone else." With the modern world and mass communication, it would be extremely difficult to recreate this egalitarian affluence. With knowledge and possessions, people desire more. They desire to be relatively more wealthy than others. (Consider the "occupy" movement where people that rank as the top 1% in the history of the world complain they don't have as much as those in the top .01%) To move on the path to the non-abundant affluence, we must "embrace the affluence we have created, and recognize value in things other than our labor."

The Old Way

What would happen if you spent your youth living with a society of primitive hunter-gatherers? Elizabeth Marshall Thomas found herself infatuated with their society and found it a recent-history utopia. The African Bushman seemed to be peace loving people who just wanted to go about their normal life. They didn't have many of the problems of modern society, nor any of the half-baked (and inconsistently enforced solutions.)

The first part of the book is an interesting analysis of the hunter-gatherers and how many of how man evolved. Men could run down big game, often using their endurance as a benefit. Simple weapons would come later. Lions and men would generally mind their own business. (Hyenas, however, would be willing to jump on the feeble.) The society was regularly on the move, and did not have time for many of the "trappings of society" (or their problems.)

Alas, the infatuation with the way of life seems to go overboard. Luckily, at the conclusion, the author acknowledges that the way of life does not exist anymore. The hunter gatherers have had huge problems adjusting to modern life and have been extremely susceptible to alcohol. The "old way" that she saw in her youth was likely not scalable to a larger society. With a small group of people, isolated in a life-or-death environment, the rule of law is fairly simple. You must share to survive. You can't worry yourself about stupid things. Once in greater contact and a part of society, this breaks down. For agriculturalists, property rights are extremely important. Managing herds is much different than hunting wild animals. Adapting to the new society is a huge challenge, especially when others all around are in a more advanced state. Living the "old way" in the modern world becomes impossible.

Now the Bushman are left as an underclass and a museum piece in their own land. Fences and regulations drove them from their life style. Few of those remaining want to return. (It is hard work after all.) Progress has led us to lose many of the cultures and ways of living in favor of our new "mono-culture". We have "diversity" but only within a limited range. Life is now the "new way".