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Dr. Shepard was a Professor of Natural Philosophy and Human Ecology and wrote a number of books on our complex relationships with the earth and her other inhabitants. Paul Shepard's book, The Others: How Animals Made Us Human is an eye-opening look into our relationship with animals. In The Others, Dr.
Shepard's focus is on the topic of domesticating animals. Originally our relationship with other species was simple. Either we ate that species, or we were eaten by it. Simplistic as it sounds, that has a profound impact on our central nervous systems, specifically the limbic system. As an aside, domestication changed some species into status symbols, and it is possible to determine the social status of extended family members by whether they slept nearer or farther than the livestock. In Thinking Animals: Animals and the Development of Human Intelligence, Dr.
Shepard briefly discusses the neurotransmitters. Prey animals are hyper vigilant, always watching and waiting for some unknown something to startle them into flight. Predators neuro chemistry, however, mandates focus: moving slowly, with patience and determination, toward the object of their attention. What kind of animal can display both kinds of attention? It must require a wild mood swing to instantly change a creeping hunter into someone who is running at top speed from a predator.
It is a huge shift from one neuro chemical pathway to a completely different pathway, releasing a neurotransmitter and simultaneously inhibiting another. I believe that the ability to switch contexts was an important factor in our evolution. No matter how much we have evolved both psychologically and culturally, the old systems are still wired in and still affect us. We are not a separate act of creation. Im sure that our proto hominid ancestors were eaten by all manner of frightening creatures.
Miss Bugs tells me that her ancestors, the sabre-tooth tigers, used to sneak up on our tiny Australopithecine ancestors, grab them by the head, and drag them home for the kittens to play with. Lower teeth puncture the back of the head, unwieldy canine teeth pierce the eyes. Physical Anthropologists have found quite a few Australopithecus skulls with these puncture marks, as evidenced by the wonderful photo at right. The Others is worth reading if only for the chapter on teddy bears as bridges between the wild and the civilized. (I think housecoats serve that purpose adequately. ) Except possibly his soul, man prizes his mind above all else. His mind is a product of its ecology the same ecology.
Nothing that evolves persists unless sustained by those same creative forces. Like a ball at the top of a fountain, the human head pivots on its animal backbone, the mind a turning knot of thought and dream on the end of a liquid spear of living animals.
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Research essay sample on Animals Human Ancestors
