Our Ancestors Had Bite

I don’t think there is anything that better symbolizes humanity’s struggles against Nature, and this including its struggles against its own lower, more base inclinations, than teeth. “Nature, red in tooth and claw,” as Tennyson said. Everything is a struggle, and every living thing is in a struggle, either to eat or to escape being eaten. Human beings may be omnivorous, but our pedigree as predators goes as far back as we want to look. When our most distant ancestors were just small animals, they were eating smaller animals. There has always been that dividing line between hunter and prey. Humans have straddled that line from the start.

According to this article, available at the source link below, Australopithecus sediba, which may have been a direct progenitor of ours, a small, simian grandfather, enjoyed a diet largely similar to that modern homo sapiens—that’s us, folks—enjoy today. Scientists know this because of the teeth they’ve recovered. If our teeth haven’t changed that much in a few million years, though, the rest of us has—our brains have gotten larger, out bodies less hirsute; we’ve gotten bigger but lost bone density and thus physical strength; our foreheads don’t slope like they used to and our jaws don’t protrude; our claws are downright pathetic these days. And like Australopithecus sediba, we don’t have nearly the bite power of some of our closest kin. Why? According to the article, because they, and eventually we, didn’t and don’t, respectively, need it. Might have something to do with that larger brain thing.

By The Evil Cheezman

WAYNE MILLER is the owner and creative director of EVIL CHEEZ PRODUCTIONS (www.evilcheezproductions.blogspot.com, www.facebook.com/evilcheezproductions), specializing in theatrical performances and haunted attractions. He has written, produced and directed (and occasionally acted in) over a dozen plays, most of them in the Horror and Crime genres. His first novel, THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT CHRISTOPHER: WEREWOLF, is available for purchase at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/734763 MORTUI VELOCES SUNT!

1 comment

  1. I have a question. Can someone, if possible, in detail tell me what is a werewolf and what makes a werewolf? I have watched the movies and maybe even Googled it. But i’d like to know this. I hope i’m not viewed as an idiot. But if you can please answer with detail and imagery.

    Thank you.

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