module 2

Question 1

how have evolutionary view been reevaluated

Answer 1

• many of these evolutionary views have been reevaluated through a reassessment of primate models and by applying a cross-cultural perspective (i.e., ethnographic) on male and female behaviour.

Question 2

baboon ex

Answer 2

○ Ex. , baboons are often used as the animal model for early human behaviour despite criticisms of using this primate group as reflective of early humans’ behaviours.
§ Humans are much more closely related to chimpanzees (we share over 96% of our DNA with chimps) than to baboons.
§ Why have baboons been used as an animal model for early humans instead of chimpanzees? Some have suggested it is because baboons behave the way some researchers want early humans to have behaved.
§ Such criticisms have led some primatologists to refer to modelling early human behaviour after baboons as the “baboonization of early human life”.

Question 3

evolution discussion ex

Answer 3

○ example is the discussion and application of evolutionary concepts.
§ the evolutionary concept of sexual selection, or the evolution of traits for reproductive benefits rather than survival, has seen contemporary human expectations (e.g., monogamy) projected onto non-human animals (e.g., birds described as “cheating” on one another).
§ These projected expectations are then used to interpret early human behaviours, based on an erroneous interpretation of non-human animal behavior

Question 4

what ks sexual dimorphism

Answer 4

○ Sexual dimorphism, or differences in size or structure between males and females of a species, has traditionally been interpreted to reflect pair bonding (forming a close relationship through courtship and sexual activity with only one other animal) which has further been interpreted as the human construct of “monogamy”.

Question 5

assumptions underlying animal models

Answer 5

many assumptions underlying the use of animal models to say something about human behaviour in the past have been challenged and have often revealed a projection of contemporary human ideals onto the animal world and, therefore, through an animal models framework, onto the human past.