Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human - Softcover

Wrangham, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465020410 ISBN 13: 9780465020416

Publisher: Basic Books, 2010

Synopsis

Ever since Darwin and The Descent of Man , the existence of humans has been attributed to our intelligence and adaptability. But in Catching Fire , renowned primatologist Richard Wrangham presents a startling alternative: our evolutionary success is the result of cooking. In a ground-breaking theory of our origins, Wrangham shows that the shift from raw to cooked foods was the key factor in human evolution. When our ancestors adapted to using fire, humanity began. Once our hominid ancestors began cooking their food, the human digestive tract shrank and the brain grew. Time once spent chewing tough raw food could be sued instead to hunt and to tend camp. Cooking became the basis for pair bonding and marriage, created the household, and even led to a sexual division of labour. Tracing the contemporary implications of our ancestors' diets, Catching Fire sheds new light on how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. A pathbreaking new theory of human evolution, Catching Fire will provoke controversy and fascinate anyone interested in our ancient origins- or in our modern eating habits.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Wrangham is the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and Curator of Primate behavioural Biology at the Peabody Museum. He is the co-author of Demonic Males and co-editor of Chimpanzee Cultures. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465020410
• ISBN 13: 9780465020416
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320