William Stoczkowksi, "Explaining Human Origins"

Stoczkowski begins by noting "what every schoolchild knows" -- elements of human origin stories repeatedly found in French and Russian textbooks. The prehistoric environment was cold and harsh, "teeming with savage animals." People led a difficult existence, constantly suffering and afraid. But then they learned to use tools, to control fire, to live in groups, and to build shelters. This allowed them to triumph over the hostile environment despite their physical weaknesses. He further notes that Enlightenment philosophers had essentially the same view of human origins. The origin stories are characterized by some crucial assumptions:

• Environmental determinism (harsh environment directly stimulates learning and development)
• Materialism (culture is determined by material conditions)
• Utilitarianism (human activity is based on achieving practical ends)
• Individualism (culture exists to benefit individuals)

A very different account of human origins was presented by Marshall Sahlins in 1968. He argued that the original humans lived in a state of well-being, very different from the "decadence" of contemporary civilization. They had plenty of food, were content with little, had plenty of leisure time, felt happy and unworried, and enjoyed freedom and equality. Sahlins' pessimism about the present and future was strikingly matched by his optimism about the past. His account works as a simple reversal of the more common story of human progress and triumph over nature.

Stoczkowski analyzes 24 "scenarios of hominisation" published between 1820 and 1986. Common themes include tools, bipedalism, free hands, langauge, social life, large brain, superior smarts, reduced canine teeth, cooperation, sexual division of labor, food-sharing, and hunting. This list has not changed significantly over the course of the sample; when features such as bipedalism, large brains, and social cooperation are considered carefully (birds and dinosaurs are bipedal; whales and elephants have large brains; many apes cooperate with each other, and even use and make tools), it becomes apparent that they are included not necessarily because they objectively distinguish humans from animals.

On the other hand, there are a number of possibilities for why there would be recurring themes in origins stories (beyond Stoczkowski's obvious pick, that powerful hidden "common-sense" assumptions have dominated a diverse range of Western anthropological thinking in the past couple of centuries):

• Empirical evidence
• Logic (nothing else is thinkable)
• Theory (for example, natural selection theory imposes certain constraints)
• Ideological concerns

In general, these are all rejected -- the scenarios are from a variety of ideological and theoretical schools, and constraints of evidence and logic are specifically checked for each. For example, nine of Stoczkowski's scenarios discuss sexual division of labor and food-sharing as arising from the advent of hunting. The authors of the scenarios generally stress that men would be better suited to hunting -- because men were predisposed to it, because women were hampered by child-rearing. But women are not always excluded from hunting; hunting does not always require great mobility; women are not necessarily immobilized by child-rearing duties; and women are sometimes included in hunting but barred from using the same tools as men, casting doubt on theories that emphasize economic efficiency. Furthermore, it is also quite logically possible to conceive of "sexual division of labor" as being essentially a taboo that prohibits women from certain activities (due to hunter-gatherer beliefs about animal and menstrual blood, for instance).

So it seems that modern anthropological theories of human origins enjoy credibility that is largely based on conformity to "common-sense" anthropology, rather than conformity to evidence or logical constraints. This illustrates "the weakness of our imagination" and that common-sense ideas can persist for centuries without significant change, creating links between different historical and cultural contexts.