But when one tries to imagine the transition from an ancestral hominoid to the earliest anatomically modern humans, complications arise. They relish meat, but ignore monkeys and when they pounce on cached or cryptic duikers, it is the females who control access to the prize. Stanford is right to focus on the distribution of meat, but he stops one step short. Indeed, Stanford's own data on smart females swapping sex for food, or Nishida's Machiavellian males swapping patronage for meat sound all too familiar. Thus meat sharing may be parental as well as mating effort.
Invertebrates are just as nutritious as vertebrates.
The author is at his bravest in revisiting the much maligned model of Man the Hunter. Anyone can gather food, but males hunt for it. Until we know more about bonobo faunivory as a possible alternative, we are stuck with these strikingly convergent gender dynamics in Pan troglodytes and Homo sapiens, like it or not. In summary, Stanford has written a provocative and deft book. The writing style is accessibly informal and the notes and references are informative.