The film Jaws, celebrating its 50th anniversary, profoundly impacts viewers by showcasing primal fears of predation. The opening scene features a young woman attacked by the unseen shark, illustrating the underlying danger. Anthropologists Donna Hart and Robert W. Sussman note that for millions of years, hominids faced predators shaping human evolution. They argue that early humans often had to escape from various carnivores, which fostered an evolutionary arms race. Predators developed innovative hunting techniques, while prey evolved defensive mechanisms, evidenced through predator-prey relationships.
Jaws taps a primal fear: predation. We like to think of ourselves as separate and above the rest of the animal kingdom, but movies like Jaws remind us of something else: Sometimes, human beings can be lunch.
Rather than conceptualizing our ancestors as bloodthirsty hunters taking down big game with spears and stones, Hart and Sussman contend that hominids more commonly had to flee from a wide range of carnivores.
Predator-prey relations tend to create 'arms races' of sorts, in which predators add new methods of attack while prey develop new defenses.
Such predation, they argue, made a deep impact on our evolution.
Collection
[
|
...
]