Anthropology: Are Humans Inherently Violent?
Evolutionary Roots of Human Violence
Humans are inherently violent according to evolution. This nature enable, our ancestors, chimpanzees to have good hunting characteristics and is much contrary to the earlier belief that violence was unique to human primates. Moreover, the time separation between humans and the chimpanzee bonobos was only 2.5 Mya. Chimpanzee bonobos is a good model of ancestors of hominids as they share major aggression traits with humans. Sussman (1997) said that the traits are arguably fixed and have long evolutionary roots. Elsewhere it has been proven that only humans and chimpanzees live as a community in male bonded patrilineal aggression territories that includes lethal raiding into neighboring environments with the intent of finding and killing their foes.
Violence amongst the Earliest Form of Humans
With the aggressive nature of apes, it is also uncomforting to note that our ancestors looked much like apes than the present day humans. Raymond Dart indicated that australopithecines, the earliest forms of human discovered in England, used bones, teeth and antler tools to butcher and kill or eat their preys and to kill one another (Sussman, 1997). Evolutional evidence also indicates that man engaged in hunting until recently, about 10000 years ago. The existing differences between man and apes are as a result of evolutional variation. The evolutional variation takes into account the fact that the goal of all organisms is to survive at the expense of others and only cooperate with other organisms of the same kin or of other kin in rare cases of reciprocal altruism. Nonetheless, the good news is that we can overcome this violet behavior by making the right choices of partners as witnessed among the pygmy chimpanzees. The general belief that human genes evolve to advance selfish motives may be overcome by making the right choices.
In conclusion, humans are inherently violent as evidenced in his evolution roots. They share in the aggression demonstrated in the lives of ape-like creatures and chimpanzees. I think the human are not inherently violent as put by Sussman (1997), but the aggression in humans is brought about by environmental factors including bully parenting and schooling.
References
Sussman, R. W. (1997). Exploring Our Basic Human Nature: Are Humans Inherently Violent?. Anthropology Notes, 19(3), 1.
