ANIMAL AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT THROUGHOUT THE AGES

Modern human society owes its beginnings to the relationship that existed between our earliest ancestors and their connection with animals. Animals are credited with being alongside early hominids while they achieved three major behavioral changes. Shipman argues that toolmaking, language development, and domestication provides evidence that a connection existed between animals and our early ancestors (2011:15). Evidence for her hypothesis is staggering, and yet sometimes it includes a bit of guesswork. The best evidence one can witness for the validity of her hypothesis is in the modern era. In the United States alone, there are 69 million pet owners and in 2007 owners spent $41 billion on their pets (2011: 271). Clearly humans are connected with animals, and this connection must have developed through a long evolutionary process. As Shipman points out, “no other animal species regularly initiates long-term nurturing relationships with individuals of another species” (2011: 12). Clearly Homo sapiens are unique. But I would argue that this uniqueness is limited. Our early ancestors have given us a long lasting connection with animals, but this connection is selective. In other words we are emotionally or economically connected with only the few species of animals that our ancestors deemed necessary enough to get along with. Today animals that are deemed to have no intrinsic face value to our modern society are being neglected. Shipman paints a pretty picture about our modern day connection with animals, saying how a number of people choose to live in daily association with animals, and how pet owners receive companionship, health benefits, and unconditional love from these animals (2011: 270-273). Granted, she does mention how modernization and increased urbanization have removed the animal connection from young children, thus inevitably from our future (2011: 275). She did not however mention anything about the effects that global warming is having on the lives of non-domesticated animals or discuss the effects of human deforestation. Modern humans have looked the other way when it comes to animals we don’t share a close tie with. If modern humans do have an animal connection that is so historically and biologically inside of us, then why are we willingly choosing the extinction of every animal that we haven’t domesticated? If we truly do have an animal connection, I think modern humanity is slowing forgetting about it. However, in the future I trust that humanity will eventually realize the errors of its ways. For if animals go extinct, we will surely follow along side them.
Toolmaking has its humble beginnings in the action of pounding which is the same driving force for toolmaking (Davidson 2005: 796). The advent of stone tools revolutionized man forever. “Tools enabled our lineage to evolve-to change our behavior and ecological niche-without evolving physically” (Shipman 2011: 32). Now instead of waiting for evolution and natural selection to give us adaptive advantages we could make them ourselves. About 2.5 million years ago stone and bone tools alike “gave our ancestors access to new sources of food that were rich in protein and fats: nutrients not found in large amounts in many vegetable foods” (2011: 59). Essentially we went from herbivores to carnivore. This giant leap also increased our dependency on animals. Since meat became a primary food source we now had to pay very close attention to the animals that we hunted for game. Hominids now had to devote “substantial time and energy to knowing where other animals were, to learning what they were doing and what they were likely to do in the future” (2011: 61). This may also have led to an increase in brain size. Since all this new information is vital to your future survival and the survival of your future offspring then you are going to need a storage place to keep all if it. Luckily for us our early ancestors had enough brain capacity to store all this vital information. But there is a problem that arises. Since tools allowed you to hunt animals that you previously never dared to encounter before and information was crucial in the success of a meal, what if you didn’t know information that another hominid did. “Knowledge became precious and the sharing of knowledge of many kinds became an adaptive advantage” (2011: 118). Our early ancestors realized that if you had limited knowledge of game then another hominid would be able to get more, if not all, of the hunt. Thus it became crucial and near mandatory to socialize with others and collect as much information about animals as possible. However in order to tell and receive information you need another tool. This tool was language.
Language, whether vocal or artistic, allowed early humans to communicate and receive information regarding animals. It helped us “survive the perilous transition from being strictly a prey species to being both a prey species and a predator” (Shipman 2011: 119). Language was also very symbolic with respects to artwork and jewelry. Language had to become more symbolic because our ancestors were now encountering strangers as they went out for game (2011: 157). Sometimes you may have had to communicate a message very quickly to a rival tribe or over a very long distance. Wearing jewelry or painting yourself with a particular color or style was a way in which early hominids signaled other tribes that they were members of a particular social group or clan (2011: 148). Cave artwork was also used to convey a message. Mainly it was information about animals (2011: 163). Which makes sense because animals were now the most important source of food. Painting inside caves might have been clues left behind by artist to inform future hunters the life style or migration patterns of game. Language was an important second behavior change that paved the way for our next development, domestication.
The word domestication can have many definitions. In science domestication means the process by which humans transform wild plants and animals into more useful products through selective breeding (Leach 2003: 349). Domestication behavior of plants and animals paved the way for modern civilization. Plants domestication is responsible for modernization because it required harsh manual labor from a community and required governments to protect land rights and yield (Shipman 2011: 192). The division of labor also increased language capacity since now we had to communicate information more accurately (Zerzan 1989: 239). This forced members to remain in one setting for a longer period of time. Animal domestication began 32,000 years ago with the dog. Years later we would domesticate animals such as goats, sheep, pigs, and cattle. These animals were domesticated because of humans needs. Domesticated animals provided manual power, transportation, and secondary products such as milk, manure, and wool (Shipman 2011: 251-253). Domestication causes the following changes in animals. It can lead to smaller body size, an abrupt change in diet, and change in genetic makeup through selective breeding (2011: 234-236). One major issue with domestication is the spreading of disease. Over half (60%) of the pathogens known to infect humans originate as zoonoses, which are diseases transmitted from animals to humans (2011: 261, 265). Clearly domestication has its advantages and disadvantages.
Does the animal connection still exist today? Yes it most certainly does, but it is in slow decline. Modern humans have urbanized so much to the extent that they are losing the animal connection. Human impacts on ecosystems are destroying the homes of many non-domesticated animals. Animals are responding to the effects of human causes such as global warming by migrating (Foster 2007: 6). If we want to keep our animal connection, then we are going to have to stop our bad habits. Otherwise, we may loose our animal connection and never get it back.
The human-animal connection has its beginnings in toolmaking. Tools allowed us to venture and hunt creatures we never had been able to hunt before. It was a key that opened the way for our new carnivorous life style. However this life style came with a cost. We were now bonded with animals in more ways then one. Their destiny became our destiny. Information about them became crucially vital to our very survival. We now had to become information collectors and socialize with others to gain new information about the animals that we hunted. Later we realized that some animals were very useful as tools. Some, instead of being used for hunting, had better uses. This led to domestication. These three behavior changes in ancient man show that a strong connection exists between humans and animals. We share a rich history and biology. However, in modern times we are slowly eradicating this connection. Eventually though we will soon have to realize that we cannot escape this connection. If we forget about our connection with animals, it will surely be the doom of modern society.

References Cited

Davidson, Iain, and William C. Mcgrew. (2005). “Stone Tools and the Uniqueness of Human Culture. “ The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 11.4: 793-817

Foster, J. (2007). The Ecology of Destruction. Monthly Review, 58(9), 1.

Leach, H. (2003). Human Domestication Reconsidered. Current Anthropology, 44(3), 349-368.

Shipman, Pat. (2011). The Animal Connection: A New Perspective on What Makes Us Human. New York: Norton, 2011. Print.

Zerzan, J. (1989). Language: Origin and Meaning. Et Cetera, 46(3), 236