Richard Walter Wrangham (born 1948) is a British primatologist.
Biography
Following his years on the faculty of the University of Michigan, he became the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and his research group is now part of the newly established Department of Human Evolutionary Biology.
He is co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, the long-term study of the Kanyawara chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda. His research culminates in the study of human evolution in which he draws conclusions based on the behavioural ecology of apes. As a graduate student, Wrangham studied under Robert Hinde and Jane Goodall.
Wrangham is known predominantly for his work in the ecology of primate social systems, the evolutionary history of human aggression (culminating in his book with Dale Peterson, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence), and most recently his research in cooking (summarized in his book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human) and self-domestication. He is a vegetarian and a MacArthur fellow.
Wrangham has been instrumental in identifying behaviors considered "human-specific" in chimpanzees, including culture and with Eloy Rodriguez, chimpanzee self-medication.
Among the recent courses he teaches in the Human Evolutionary Biology (HEB) concentration at Harvard are HEB 1330 Primate Social Behaviour and HEB 1565 Theories of Sexual Coercion (co-taught with Professor Diane Rosenfeld from Harvard Law School). In March 2008, he was appointed House Master of Currier House at Harvard College. He received an honorary degree in Doctor of Science from Oglethorpe University in 2011.
Research
Wrangham began his career as a researcher at Jane Goodall's long-term common chimpanzee field study in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. He befriended fellow primatologist Dian Fossey and assisted her in setting up her nonprofit mountain gorilla conservation organization, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund (originally the Digit Fund).
Wrangham's latest work focuses on the role cooking has played in human evolution. He has argued that cooking food is obligatory for humans as a result of biological adaptations and that cooking, in particular the consumption of cooked tubers, might explain the increase in hominid brain sizes, smaller teeth and jaws, and decrease in sexual dimorphism that occurred roughly 1.8 million years ago. Many anthropologists disagree with Wrangham's ideas, pointing out that there is no solid evidence to support Wrangham's claims. The mainstream explanation is that human ancestors, prior to the advent of cooking, turned to eating meats, which then caused the evolutionary shift to smaller guts and larger brains.
Bibliography
- Wrangham, R (1980). "An ecological model of female-bonded primate groups". Behaviour. 75: 262â€"300. doi:10.1163/156853980x00447.Â
- Wrangham, R.; Smuts, B. B (1980). "Sex differences in the behavioural ecology of chimpanzees in the Gombe National Park, Tanzania". Journal of Reproduction and Fertility. 28 Suppl: 13â€"31.Â
- Smuts, B.B., Cheney, D.L. Seyfarth, R.M., Wrangham, R.W., & Struhsaker, T.T. (Eds.) (1987). Primate Societies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-76715-9
- Wrangham, R.; Conklin, N. L.; Chapman, C. A.; Hunt, K. D. (1991). "The significance of fibrous foods for Kibale Forest chimpanzees". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences. 334 (1270): 171â€"178. doi:10.1098/rstb.1991.0106.Â
- Wrangham, R (1993). "The evolution of sexuality in chimpanzees and bonobos". Human Nature. 4 (1): 47â€"79. doi:10.1007/bf02734089.Â
- Wrangham, R. and Peterson, D. (1996). Demonic males. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-87743-2.
- Wrangham, R (1997). "Subtle, secret female chimpanzees". Science. 277 (5327): 774â€"775. doi:10.1126/science.277.5327.774.Â
- Wrangham, R (1999). "Is military incompetence adaptive?". Evolution and Human Behavior. 20 (1): 3â€"17. doi:10.1016/s1090-5138(98)00040-3.Â
- Wrangham, R.; Jones, J. H.; Laden, G.; Pilbeam, D.; Conklin-Brittain, N. L. (1999). "The raw and the stolen: Cooking and the ecology of human origins". Current Anthropology. 40 (5): 567â€"594. PMID 10539941. doi:10.1086/300083.Â
- Wrangham, R. (2009). Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Basic Books, 2009. ISBN 0-465-01362-7
- Eds. Muller, M. & Wrangham, R. (2009). 'Sexual Coercion in Primates and Humans'. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
References
External links
- Website of Kibale Chimpanzee Project
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University
- Video (with mp3 available) of interview about his research with Wrangham by John Horgan on Bloggingheads.tv
