The behavioural and socio-cognitive implications of the evolution of the primate predatory pattern: An embodied and integrative theory of human carnivory

The article aims to unravel the elementary structures of hominin carnivory by drawing upon paleoanthropological, archaeological, primatological, and ethnographic investigations to underscore the primary differences and similarities in meat-eating patterns within the Primate order. Theoretically, it proposes a potential evolutionary scenario for a wide variety of carcass acquisition strategies—including highly embodied forms of associations with organismic kingdoms and inorganic matter—developed in our hominin lineage by comparing the behavioural and cognitive complex (i.e., tool use, cooperative hunting, meat sharing, and scavenging behaviour) exhibited by our primate relatives. This, at a more granular level, may shed light on the most basic forms of cognition, sociality, technical skills, and interspecies intimacy and relationalities that characterise the primate predatory pattern, which has further evolved into complex forms of animal-hominin entanglements deeply embedded in a niche filled with heightened levels of bodily interaction, sensory engagement, and perceptual experiences. From the analysis of these modes of embodiment in the animal-hominin interface, the theoretical model thus unveils the complex interplay between lower- and higher-order relational processes involved in patterns of meat consumption—from interspecies associations, bodily intimacy and compenetration of matter and intentionalities to forms of ritual, mytho-cosmological, and ontogical associations between humans, animals and and other agents from the physical and immaterial realms—which is manifest throughout the course of hominin evolution, thereby providing potential evolutionary templates to better understand human carnivory and its highly relational and embodied nature.