Snakes, Sunrises, and Shakespeare: How Evolution Shapes Our Loves and Fears

228 Pages·2014·2.09 MB·English

by  Gordon H. Orians

Snakes, Sunrises, and Shakespeare

How Evolution Shapes Our Loves and Fears
Gordon H. Orians
The University of Chicago Press | Chicago and London
Gordon H. Orians is professor emeritus of biology at
the University of Washington.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2014 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2014.
Printed in the United States of America
23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 00323- 8 (cloth)
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 00337- 5 (e- book)
doi: 10.7208 / c hicago / 9 780226003375.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Orians, Gordon H., author.
Snakes, sunrises, and Shakespeare : how evolution
shapes our loves and fears / Gordon H. Orians.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978- 0- 226- 00323- 8 (cloth : alkaline paper) —
isbn 978- 0- 226- 00337- 5 (e- book)
1. Emotions. 2. Evolution (Biology)—Psychological
aspects. I. Title.
bf531.o73 2014
152.4—dc23
2013019829
o This paper meets the requirements of ansi / niso
z39.48- 1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Contents
1 Whistling for Honey • 1
2 Ghosts of the African Savanna • 9
3 The High Cost of Learning • 23
4 Reading the Landscape • 33
5 The Snake in the Grass
( . . . and Other Hazards) • 42
6 Settling Down and Settling In • 60
7 A Ransom in Pepper • 97
8 The Musical Ape • 118
9 The First Sniff • 139
10 Ordering Nature • 150
11 The Honeyguide and the Snake:
Embracing Our Ecological Minds • 162
Acknowledgments . 183
Notes . 185
Illustration Credits . 207
Index . 209

Whistling
for Honey
How old is the human sweet tooth, and
why do we crave sweet things?
As it happens, these two questions
will take us far from our distant ancestors and their hunger for wild
honey. They will lead us to still other questions, questions that have to
do with the emotions the natural world arouses in us—yearning and
revulsion, joy and fear—and how those emotions have shaped every as-
pect of our lives.
But our story starts here, following a prehistoric hunter somewhere
in Africa, whistling for honey.
Until humans fi gured out how to refi ne sugar from plants such as
sugarcane and sugar beets, we had to steal from creatures skilled at con-
centrating the nectar of fl owers into a rich source of food: honeybees.
Our ancestors learned how to rob the nests of wild bees at least twenty
thousand years ago—rock art of that age survives in Zimbabwe (fi g-
ure 1.1) The image left behind on the rock face clearly shows a person
smoking a hive to get honey.
Our African ancestors must have found honey a sweet temptation:
it was nutritious, delicious, and easy to digest. But bee colonies are
uncommon on the African savanna. In order to fi nd and exploit them,
prehistoric humans relied on an unusual partner that also benefi ted by
leading them to the hives. That partnership has persisted into modern
times; we can still witness it today in several African tribes, among them
the Boran of northeast Kenya.
Just before setting off in search of honey, Boran honey hunters give a
specifi c, loud whistle, known as the fuulido (fi gure 1.2). If they’re in luck,
there will be a return call from a bird with a fuulido of its own. The caller
is a greater honeyguide, a small bird; its Latin name, Indicator indica-
tor, refl ects its value to humans. The honeyguide repeats its distinctive
1
chapter one
Figure 1.1. Rock painting showing a honey hunter using
smoke on a wild hive, Toghwana Dam, Zimbabwe.
“follow me” call, and begins to escort the Boran hunters to a bee’s nest,
pausing frequently to allow the hunters to catch up. Most astonishing,
upon arriving at the tree where the bees have nested, the honeyguide
perches and sings a special “indication” song. The bird escort remains
nearby as the hunters disperse the bees and claim the prize of the honey-
comb. In gratitude, they always reward their navigator by leaving be-
hind some honeycomb. Unlike most birds, honeyguides can digest wax;
1
they feast on it along with the honey and bee larvae lodged in the comb,
but honeyguides are too small and weak to open bees nests. They depend
on humans to do it for them, just as people depend on honeyguides to
help them fi nd the nests.
This unusual mutually benefi cial partnership features in the myths of
many African savanna- dwelling tribes. Our ancestors probably gorged
on honey whenever they could fi nd it. Honey was a nutritional and en-
ergy bonanza, a precious fuel for our large hominid brains. But the rarity
of hives in the savannas made it impossible to gather enough to grow fat
on this rich resource.
By contrast, walk the aisles of a modern supermarket and count the
staggering variety of sweet and sugary foods. We modern humans are
blessed and cursed by uninterrupted access to sweets, and we have be-
come slaves to our sweet tooth. Hardwired with our ancestors’ crav-
ings for s ugar-r ich foods, we’re unable to resist. We are also adapted to
2
Figure 1.2a. A Hadza hunter named Darabe whistling for a honeyguide.
Figure 1.2b. Hadza boy eating a nutritionally rich honeycomb.
3