Lucy鈥檚 Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution by Alison Jolly,
Harvard, 拢18.50/$29.95, ISBN 0674000692
WHAT makes us human? Sex and politics, says world famous primatologist Alison
Jolly. So it鈥檚 all fighting for mates and forming powerful hierarchies then?
Competition and aggression? Not at all: the new new thing in evolutionary
studies is cooperation as Jolly makes stunningly clear in Lucy鈥檚 Legacy.
Princeton鈥檚 Jolly made her name as a primatologist with her studies of
lemurs, the only matriarchal primate species, in Madagascar鈥檚 dwindling forests.
She takes her book鈥檚 title from the ancient hominid skeleton discovered by Bob
Johansson and nicknamed Lucy. It signals her intention to look far back into the
past to discover why cooperation underpins both thinking and ancestral
copulation. Lucy is modern compared to the pre-cellular evolution that begins
Jolly鈥檚 elegant synthesis of psychology and sociology with animal behaviour to
explain how cooperation shaped the minds and social patterns of modern
primates.
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Her method is to offer a host of lively facts to grip the imagination: male
Bonellia worms pass their tiny, parasitic, lives on the tongues of their much
larger mates. Right whale testes each weigh a quarter of a tonne. Status-hungry
chimps attempt to castrate rival males. The male of a species of African tick
secretes a protein that blocks the host鈥檚 immune response so that the female
feeding nearby gets a bigger meal. Jolly adds historical gems, too. For example,
the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus, founder of modern taxonomy, called
鈥淢ammalia鈥� that, rather than any of the other anatomical alternatives, because
he was an ardent campaigner for breast-feeding and natural motherhood. Mammaries
mattered, he believed.
All this provides a rich mix, which could easily have ended up as a
convoluted tangle of facts. But Jolly bounds from topic to topic with all the
assurance of one of her beloved lemurs. After biological stage-setting, Jolly
focuses on primatology. Cooperation of all kinds has shaped the minds and the
social patterns of modern primates. For example, sexual favours are the bedrock
of successful alliances among primates. However, Jolly remains consistent to her
pro-female anti-patriarchal emphasis, and she asserts that females were never a
submissive 鈥渟econd sex鈥�, buying favours from their protective,
testosterone-powered protectors. Instead, alliances formed through cooperative,
sometimes Machiavellian, interplay: she wants egalitarian, energetic investment,
he wants to ensure paternity.
Her book is full of wry, ironic humour, as well as knowledgeable remarks
about the way science works: her delightful comment about a sea squirt is that
鈥渆ventually it settles down and eats its own brain鈥攔ather like an
assistant professor upon achieving tenure鈥�. Past academic treatment of sexuality
and anatomy of female primates is revealed in all its wince-inducing
patriarchy. When scientific anthropology arrived in the 19th century, academics
shoehorned perceptions of our ancestoral past to justify the inequalities of the
Victorian age. Pointing out that 鈥渕ost of our ancestors were not Victorians鈥�,
Jolly鈥檚 phrasing offers occasional glimpses of the heavy frustration she feels:
鈥淭he concept of women in evolution remains encased in the glassed-in Old
Testament diorama held down by a Palaeolithic glass ceiling,鈥� for example.
Because much of our behaviour evolved to fit the politics of small groups,
Jolly believes that humans are quintessentially political animals. This is part
of her unashamedly adaptationist stance: that our behaviour, as well as our
bodies, evolved in response to natural selection and genetic change. Yes, she
argues, the environment is important in behavioural development. Of course,
culture has its place in explaining our behaviour. But the human condition has
its roots in the adaptive neurology of our ancestors. It is the evolutionary
pressure to make and keep track of alliances that has prompted the evolution of
our intelligence, sense and purpose.
Bolstered by acute analysis of the degree of mental sophistication of the
great apes, Jolly produces a convincing reappraisal of the position of male and
female in human evolution. She dispenses with the patriarchal wish-fulfilment of
鈥渕an the hunter鈥� scenarios and modifies recent revisionist notions that make man
a mere appendix to female-driven evolution. By stressing cooperation, Jolly
embraces the best of both camps, while avoiding their excesses.
She is not afraid to add a personal note, such as her experiences of
motherhood temper and personalise the narrative, adding to the discussion of
bipedalism and of pelvis shape. This mix of the academic and personal provides
the best kind of popularisation. It鈥檚 an invitation to sit and discuss with a
learned friend: the dinner-table-side manner. Indeed, Lucy鈥檚 Legacy has
the tone of a wise friend reminding you of things you had forgotten while
arranging them for you in a delightful, previously unperceived and revelatory
way鈥攁nd doing this for your edification, rather than for their own glory.
You get the impression that Jolly would much prefer you said, 鈥渨hat a wonderful
lemur鈥� at the end of a talk, rather than 鈥渨hat a wonderful lecture鈥�.
Jolly鈥檚 subject is serious, her erudition profound in a book deft and sure
enough to engage even those with the briefest of biological backgrounds. She has
pulled off that most elegant of scientific popularisation tricks: being light
without being lightweight.