Did humans evolve from cannabilistic killer apes or gentle plant eaters?

Question

Did humans evolve from cannabilistic killer apes or gentle plant eaters?

Answer 1

The two kinds of mammals having forward facing eyes are tree dwellers & predators.  Both must judge distance on a regular basis to survive.  Predators have always developed a larger brain than their prey if they wish to survive & outwit their prey. Due to environmental changes some of these tree dwellers were forced to leave the trees to find food & developed bipedalism as a means of increasing their line of sight & possibly carrying items to the safety of trees. Those that didn't develop bipedalism died out.

For some period of time these bipedal creatures were herbavoirs, but in desperation some began to scavenge meat from the kills of predators.  The increased protien spurred them to develop a larger brain & eventually they determined ways to kill their own food.  The herbavoirs died out & never made the jump to a large brain.

Eating meat is responsible for the larger brain all hominoids including Neanderthal & Sapien.  Yes I suspect many homo sapiens & other lines of hominids were at one time or another cannabilistic out of desperation, but the pack/social arrangement of hominids would have made this a rare act of desperation.

Answer 2

i never knew apes were cannibals

Answer 3

the answer is both. Chimnps are gentle plant eaters most of the time: then they go and kill each other or a monkey or gazelle. Social hominids were probably v nice to each other and ate plant amterial a lto of the time but then the males in particular would have hunted meat and other hominids. There is very little other explanation for the very rapid rise in intelligence and technology among hominids than vicious intraspecific competition. cetainly neither other species nor the environment can put such pressure on as we experienced

Answer 4

But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems not our corpses.

- Robert Ardrey

Man evolved from opportunistic hominids.  They were omnivorous (ate plants and meat), they were likely not gentle, they would fight for their group, food, territory, etc. just like modern apes and humans do to this day.  But they were not likely cannibalistic killers any more than we are today.  Examples of cannibalism exist in many specie but it is rarely the norm.  It happens with humans but usually in extreme circumstances (Donner Party, the movie Alive) or in complex ritual (mortuary cannibalism (eating dead ancestors) in South America).  

This question is sort of like asking if people are inherently good or bad.  They are both and/or neither.  They are just people and people do what they have to do when they re pushed to it.  Not always pretty but, neither is life.

Answer 5

They did not evolve as much as they occurred.

Answer 6

By measuring the length of our digestive tract, the answer is somewhere in-between...

Answer 7

I'm not sure if cannibalism is a correct descriptor, but predators have historically enjoyed more pressure towards encephalization and--in many species--cooperative behavior between individuals that are related.  Local population would depend primarily on multiple sources of food, mobility of the small groups, and skill/cooperation at hunting.

"Gentle plant eaters", on the other hand, are probably more invested in discriminating among the type of food available and are much more likely to keep their populations low, especially where food is limited.  This population limitation would limit the ability of the population's ability to "flex" numerically and begin adaptation to local changes in environment.

My bet, based on the degree of encephalization, the dentition (teeth), and level of cooperation in primitive humans, that we are more predatory than bovine...

Answer 8

There is no evidence that humans ever underwent ANY evolution outside of "variations" WITHIN their species. A noted evolutionist has pointed out that "We never see the very process that we profess to story." (The late Prof. S.J. Gould)