My theories on behavior were sparked by a dog picking up newspapers

The idea for this blog came along quite by accident. My next-door neighbor had just gotten a new pup, a Vizsla. Early one morning we both came out at the same time to get our newspapers. As it turned out his dog had run out and picked up all the newspapers in our cul-de-sac, my neighbor was in the process of putting the newspapers back in each of our driveways, he was a little embarrassed by his dog’s behavior. To me it was very funny watching him trying to keep his dog from doing her “job” as a retriever, retrieving newspapers.

The Vizsla is a wonderful hunting dog. The American Kennel Club considers the Vizsla a part of the sporting dog group. They were bred for field activities and even today participate in hunting and field activities. Well for my neighbor, his dog is a house pet; in the last 100 years dogs have gone from working animals to house pets. It is very hard for a working dog to get past hundreds of years of breeding to now sit quietly and keep the family company.

Dogs were bred for hunting, protection and herding animals. Domestic dogs started out as workers, helping man. Many years’ later dogs became companions and lap dogs and some were bred for that purpose.

In looking at human behavior I began to realize how much we are affected by this same history. As humans we have been walking around the earth for thousands of years. In the last few centuries we have become more “modern” or “civilized” or have we?  Man started as a hunter and woman started as a gatherer, but why? Does this account for our current behavior? Are we more like early man than we would like to admit? Does a lot of this behavior live on in our subconscious?

I think we still behave like Early Man, and in reading this blog I think you will come to appreciate my point of view, it passes the common sense test. I am a Baby Boomer; which influences my perspective on life, which I don’t think is all that bad. I am not an anthropologist by training but in writing this blog I have learned a great deal about behavior and about myself.

The Kitchen Table Anthropologist

Words of wisdom on relationships

Men and women still have a hard time understanding each other not just on a first date but thought out the course of a relationship.

Man and women are of course different animals. For thousands of years men have been hunters and women have been gatherers. Yes maybe we don't exactly hunt and gather as we did as cave people but our behavior still supports this reality.

When it comes to relationships today if all you remember about the opposite sex is this, you will have a much greater insight into your significant other.

Men think women won't change and they do

Women think men will change and they don't

Think about it; understand it and it will improve your relationship with the opposite sex.

The Kitchen Table Anthropologist

Myths on sex - top nine

Myths on sex - top nine

I ran across this on-line article on the top nine sex myths and had to post a link. I think it is right on.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2010/12/08/sex-myths-need-know/

Good reading, enjoy

The Kitchen Table Anthropologist

New discovery - cavemen DNA linked to people today

When you are driving and think the person in front of you is acting like a Neanderthal you may be right. For anyone who has been reading this blog my theories are: our behavior is still tied to our days as cavemen and cavewomen. Yes our technology has advanced but has our behavior? I think not.

This just in, scientists in Germany at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, have decoded fragments of 40,000 year old DNA found in Neanderthal skeletons in Croatia and discovered that some of the genetic material exists in people walking around today. Anthropologists previously believed that early humans, who lived in prehistoric Europe and the Middle Ease until about 30,000 year ago simply died out, but the latest finding show that interbreeding must have taken place. And here we are today related to early man.

Yes folks, that is a Neanderthal driving in front of you talking on their cell phone and ignoring traffic all around them.

The Kitchen Table Anthropologist

Woman the Gatherer - Man the Hunter

Women have been gathering since the beginning. Ever wonder why women always talk while they work and men don’t. We just looked at why men are silent, so they don’t scare off the animals while hunting. Women on the other hand wanted to scare off the wild animals. While out in the field gathering they probably talked with each other in loud voices. This would scare off the animals and help them keep track of each other at the same time.

Gathering is much different than hunting. When hunting you focus on a single task and give it your all. But gathering is more like modern shopping; you have to look at everything before you decide what you really need. Modern shopping and early gathering are so closely linked to each other it’s real scary. Even the process has not changed with modern technology. Yes modern woman drive to the mall but the process has not changed one single bit!

My wife in her youth was subject to her mother’s habit of dressing up her girls in their Sunday best to go downtown to window shop. That was the common way to shop before the shopping mall was invented. It is also were the term window shopping came from. It was a rite of passage for the females in the family. My wife and her sisters hated it so much they never passed it along to their children. I am sure my Mother in Law learned it from her mother.

This may be the same reason that women go to the bathroom together. Men have better plumbing and can relieve themselves in short order. Women on the other hand need to take a moment and stoop down and in doing so would have put themselves in more danger from wild animals while they are off balance. Women probably went to relieve themselves as a group to provide some protection for each other and to warn off the animals.

A good friend of mine is a jogger and has been running though his neighborhood for many years. He is also an observant person. He runs in the city of Del Mar; a very up scale area north of San Diego in Southern California. Over the years he has noticed that men usually run by themselves and women run in groups. I am sure some of this is due to the need for personal protection, but Del Mar is a very safe area. I think women run today for the same reasons they ran together thousands of years ago.

The Kitchen Table Anthropologist

Sex is a big deal for our animal friends

We can learn a lot about ourselves from the behavior of animals. In looking at animal behavior it is much easier to be object and not cloud our impressions with all our human baggage.

Recent research on animal behavior has shattered the myth that animals are monogamous. For the longest time there was this romantic belief that once animals mate, it’s for life. Our only means of research has been to observe behavior. The new research is based on DNA and is much more scientific.

Of the 4000 or so mammals alive today only about a dozen are monogamous. We have always assumed that monkeys and Chimpanzees fool around, but this research has proven that Chimps copulate between 500 and 1000 times for each live birth, with every male in their group. The reasons are most interesting, food, power, protection and comfort, sound familiar? 

Yes, we are not primates but sometimes our behavior is closer to that of the primates than we would like to believe. It is common theory that early man behaved like animals in many ways. It is only since becoming “modern man” that we have taken to marriage and monogamous relationships. And not all marriages are monogamous, the divorce rate and extra martial affairs are quite common. My monogamous marriage of more than 40 years is unfortunately an exception and not the rule.

It is possible to have a relationship like mine but with early man living with the animals and probably learning some activities from them; it goes against thousands of years of our primitive behavior.

The Kitchen Table Anthropologist

For many men monogamy is very difficult - because it is so new

Monogamy, or having only one sex partner, has only been around for about 1900 years.  Even in the days of the early church priests had more than one wife, it was just what everyone did.

Thousands of years ago women often mated with several men in their tribe, that way no one knew who the kids belonged to so men took care of and protected all the children in the tribe. These cavewomen were smart and knew how to handle their men even back in the day.

Our male sex drive today is very strong and is ment to reproduce; it has kept us going for all these years. If we did not have this strong sex drive we would not have survived as a species. Also having large families were part of our survival because many children died both at a young age and in childbirth. So if we had a dozen or more kids we would ensure that at least a few children would survive and keep the linage going.

Today many men and women have one sex partner and a lot of us are happy with this arrangement. BUT after thousands of year of great sex with anyone in the tribe at anytime of the day or night,  it's hard to be monogamous. It's just not who we started out as.

The Kitchen Table Anthropologist