Man the Hunter: The First Intensive Survey of a Single, Crucial Stage of Human Development― Man’s Once Universal Hunting Way of Life - Softcover

Lee, Richard Borshay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 020233032X ISBN 13: 9780202330327

Publisher: Aldine, 1968

Synopsis

Man the Hunter is a collection of papers presented at a symposium on research done among the hunting and gathering peoples of the world. Ethnographic studies increasingly contribute substantial amounts of new data on hunter-gatherers and are rapidly changing our concept of Man the Hunter. Social anthropologists generally have been reappraising the basic concepts of descent, fi liation, residence, and group structure. This book presents new data on hunters and clarifi es a series of conceptual issues among social anthropologists as a necessary background to broader discussions with archaeologists, biologists, and students of human evolution.

About this title

Review

“The Wenner-Gren symposium ‘Man the hunter’ represents a fascinating confrontation between the traditional (if diverse) theories of the structural anthropologists and a new generation of ecologically oriented field-workers. Anyone familiar with previous examples of these excellent symposia will know that after each section of prepared papers, the contributors have time to challenge each other’s facts, exchange opinions and relate the topic under discussion to a wider context. This method leads to a genuine attempt to get to grips with a problem and can lead to very lively reading as well.... In short, this is a vital book on a vital subject, which is destined to be a classic in anthropology.”

—Vernon Reynolds, Man

“[E]ven if this work is not a primer for beginners, it will certainly become a provocative stimulus to professionals; and it is safe to predict that it will be an important source of debate and controversy in years to come, as well as a spur to future research on man’s original condition, the hunting way of life.”

—D. Lee Guemple, American Anthropologist

“Man the Hunter is one of the few books which makes a scholarly effort to bridge the gap between physical anthropology, archaeology, biology, ecology, and cultural anthropology. It contains comprehensive coverage of the now-vanishing hunting-gathering mode of human subsistence and cultural development—from early Paleolithic times to the present, from the classics of archeological and anthropological research to the latest findings.... Man the Hunter should be read and re-read by the serious scholar.”

—Margaret C. Wheeler, The Quarterly Review of Biology

“All in all, this seems to have been a surprisingly good symposium. One suspects that much of the success should be measured in the stimulation of the actual “meeting of minds”.... [T]here are many segments that will be edifying for anyone at all interested in the quality of life of very primitive peoples.”

—Elman Service, Science

Edition details

• Publisher: Aldine
• Publication date: 1968
• ISBN 10: 020233032X
• ISBN 13: 9780202330327
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 432