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portion.  Such is the power of chimpanzee lust for a decent serving of
steak tartare.42
Like chimpanzees, we started out as involuntary herbivores.
And like the chimps, we must have craved those rich, red, high-protein
treats.  But we are far luckier than our simian cousins.  Chimps
occasionally pick up a heavy stick and slam it to the ground.  But
hurling a stone more than a few yards is beyond their power.  And aim
is out of the question.43  We, on the other hand, eventually managed to
stand on two legs instead of four, so we could see the browsing brutes
about us from a distance.  And our hands lost the clumsiness that had
dogged our knuckle-walking relatives.
Let's try to imagine the consequences of that newfound dexterity
for our primordial ancestors.  One day some pre-human, licking his
lips at the sight of a passing antelope and dreaming of a solid meal,
gets an idea.  Instead of picking up a stick and pounding the ground as
chimps do to frighten a predator, he'll throw the branch with all his
might at the grass-nibbling beast.  The fast-moving length of wood
knocks out the antelope and opens a whole new meat locker to a
hungry mankind.
As the man who brings home the bacon, the early-human with
the bright idea experiences a sudden fame.  When he comes back to
camp, the folks crowd around him, bowing and begging, showing
great deference.  Soon his regular habit of showing up with slabs of
meat gives the man authority.44
The stick-throwing hunter becomes a leader.  A vast number of
ethological and psychological studies have shown that social
animals--from birds to humans--imitate their leaders' behavior.  Soon,
all the young men are throwing sticks and stones, dreaming of
becoming the chief to whom all bow and beg, the trend-setter at whom
the girls want to fling their bodies.
  ap of flesh.  The ritual continues until every chimp has had its
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