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Do Pets Shape Human Evolution?
from the Christian Science Monitor
Our love of all things furry has deep roots in human evolution and may have even shaped how our ancestors developed language and other tools of civilization.
This "animal connection" compelled humans to learn about and care for fellow creatures, said Pat Shipman, a paleoanthropologist at Penn State University. She added that the behavior seems highly abnormal for other animals on the rare occasions that, say, captive tigers nurture pigs or vice versa.
"The animal connection runs through the whole [human history] and connects the other big evolutionary leaps, including stone tools, language and domestication," Shipman explained. "Instead of being isolated discoveries, there's a theme here. It's very deep and very old."
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