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Question:How did the early hominines protect themselves from the many large predators with which they coexisted, without any weapons?
Answer:
They did have a weapon. The cat. Imagine that you have an angry tomcat thrown at your face. That would discourage even a lion or a hyena, at least long enough for the thrower to make his escape. Hard on the cat, but they breed replacements quickly.
Male cats would be the primary weapon. The australopithecine may not have been able to conceptualize that they were preserving females for future breeding, however it doesn’t take much thought to know that the slightly larger tomcats would make a better weapon. Two million years of being carried around as a defensive weapon may account for the modern cat's desire to be held. This carrying of cats, while almost certainly is not the cause of bipedalism, it would certainly have reinforced a bipedal posture. I'm surprised that people don't still carry cats as an anti-mugging defense. It works better then mace.
Experimental proof:
After obtaining a number of cats and human volunteers, perform the following steps:
- Have volunteer attack you.
- Throw cat at head of attacker.
- Call ambulance for attacker.
- Repeat steps 1 through 3 until volunteers decline to attack.
As you will see, cats can be very effective in both fighting off an attack and in preventing future attacks.
Copyright © Lorenzo L. Love
August 8, 1998
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