Catching Fire by: Richard Wrangham

Description In the book Catching Fire, Richard Wrangham presents his Cooking Hypothesis to explain the relationship between brain size and controlled use of fire. Wrangham makes several implications about the relationship between cooking and biological and social changes in humans during our evolution. Wrangham supports his hypothesis using the hominin fossil record, and studies of modern humans and modern non-human primates. Many of the examples of modern humans Wrangham uses are from modern human foraging societies, but these observations are decades old and often biased by racial and cultural prejudices. Wrangham makes a lot of implications about the importance of cooking in human evolution, and even goes so far as to say that we weren’t human until we had controlled use of fire. For this assignment: (1) Briefly explain Wrangham’s Cooking Hypothesis: what anatomical changes and social structures does Wrangham use as a basis for his hypothesis? What social implications does Wrangham make about cooking and human evolution? (2) Next, carefully critique Wrangham’s hypothesis: what are its strengths and weaknesses? Discuss whether or not you agree with his claims about anatomical and social changes and their link to cooking. Discuss whether or not the use of ethnographic examples provides adequate support for the conclusions made in this book. (3) Finally, do you agree with Wrangham that humans were not human until they started cooking?