Essay - What Does It Mean to Be Human? This Might Seem...

What does it mean to be human? This might seem to ***** a simple question, but that is probably because we have not thought very deeply about the issue. For decades physical anthropologists and other scholars ***** investigated this question. Their early efforts tended to take the form of trying to find one single trait that defined humans as different from all other species - whether it was our opposing thumb or the way in which we use language ***** in our recognition of our own mortality or even in the fact that we murder others of our own *****.

Related to this search f***** the "missing trait" was ***** search for a "missing link" - a species that would link Homo sapiens sapiens ***** the species that had come before us historic*****y on ***** evoluti*****ary train. The thinking behind both of these searches was very much the same: Scientists could not believe that we (***** is, we humans) existed on a continuum with o*****r primates. *****re must be, the conventional thinking went, something that set us aside from all ***** *****se other animals. Some missing, linking species that showed the first signs of whatever bright intelligence it is that *****s humans *****f as being on a ***** order of development than ***** other primates, ***** to mention all ***** species.

But *****in the last few decades such a search for what ***** is ***** makes us different from all other species has become less ***** less ***** a concern for scholars. Certain, ***** are considered by biologists and anthropologists to be unique - ***** so are ***** other *****. Much of the recent re***** in ***** anthropology, paleontology and primatology has helped to fill in the gaps ***** knowledge about how humans are in ***** connected ***** other primates rather ***** in how we are set apart from all other species.

Shirley Strum's book on her research ***** baboons is an example ***** this more recent kind of *****, work that ***** as its focus ***** attempt to understand human development and human *****havior from a broader perspective, one that places it within the larger realm of primate studies. She offers definitive proof ***** of ***** ***** be still needed by any***** - that ***** behavior can better be understand not ***** *****mething unique in the animal k*****gdom but rather as sharing significant points of similarity with the behavior of those *****s that ***** most closely related to us.

The baboon, or the Papio hamadryas to give it its scientific name, is a l*****rge monkey that is a member of the family Cercopithecidae. Its natural habitat spans both Arabia and Africa in those regions south of the Sahara desert. Their size al***** overlaps that of humans, ***** males (who are about twice ***** size of females) ranging up to almost 90 pounds and extending 45 inches in length, ***** counting their tails.

Fairly omnivorous in their diet, they eat a variety of plants as well as small mammals and