    29

    Those men within the tribe whose genetic endowment has left

    them with awkward hands and poor coordination (you can include me

    among them), are left out of the new fashion.  Since women shun them,

    the number of their babies are few.  The natural hurlers, on the other

    hand, are idolized by women and deferred to by other men.  Theirs are

    the new children of the tribe.

    Appallingly, the stick-tossers' ability to bring home protein

    would not be their only source of appeal to women.  Their ability to kill

    their fellow humans with a well-aimed lob would also help them

    accumulate mates.  Among the Yanomamo Indians of southern

    Venezuela and northern Brazil, killers acquire the greatest number of

    wives and father the biggest flocks of children.  One skilled Yanomamo

    slayer had 43 children by eleven different women.45  Through genes

    and learning, the practice of pitching would make swift progress.

    So  far,  this  picture  is  less  fanciful  than  it  seems.    The  trick  of

    using a thrown object to kill was almost certainly introduced by a male.

    Among chimps, males are the only ones to kill for meat, though the

    females are quite anxious to sup on the results.  What's more, there is a

    hierarchy of males even among our relatives the baboons, chimpanzees

    and langurs.  In the animal world, some become leaders, others mere

    followers.  The dominant males not only attract the most females, they

    keep other males away from their women.  As a consequence, the vast

    majority of a group's offspring are theirs.  Thus any genetic trait that

    brings a creature to the top of the heap is certain to snap through the

    crowd in a few short generations.46

    The notion of the primitive hurler tossing stones on the

    primordial plain is not a mere whimsy either.   Neurophysiologist

    William H. Calvin actually hypothesizes that the art of throwing was

    responsible for the rapid increase in size and complexity of the early

    human brain.47  But all this only explains how the knack for tossing

    might have raced through one isolated human group.  How could it

    have spread to the other clusters of humanity dotting the prehistoric

    landscape?

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