Russell Tuttle synthesizes a vast literature in primate evolution and behavior to explain how apes and humans evolved in relation to one another and why humans became a bipedal, tool-making, culture-inventing species distinct from other hominoids. He refutes the theory that we are sophisticated, instinctively aggressive and destructive killer apes.

Autorentext
Russell H. Tuttle is Professor of Anthropology on the Committee on Evolutionary Biology, at the Morris Fishbein Center for the History of Science and Medicine, and in the College at the University of Chicago.

Inhalt
Contents 1. Mongrel Models and Seductive Scenarios of Human Evolution Part I: Terminology, Morphology, Genes, and Lots of Fossils 2. Apes in Space 3. Apes in Time 4. Taproot and Branches of Our Family Tree Part II: Positional and Subsistence Behaviors 5. Apes in Motion 6. Several Ways to Achieve Erection 7. Hungry and Sleepy Apes 8. Hunting Apes and Mutualism Part III: Hands, Tools, Brains, and Cognition 9. Handy Apes 10. Mental Apes Color Illustrations Part IV: Sociality and Communication 11. Social, Antisocial, and Sexual Apes 12. Communicative Apes Part V: What Makes Us Human? 13. Language, Culture, Ideology, Spirituality, and Morality Notes References Illustration Credits Index