Almost Human: Anthropology Book about Baboons by Shirley Strum

Gorillas have shown compassion for young children ...

May 30, 2016

The above article reminded me of when I was studying Anthropology at UCSC in Santa Cruz just before the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989.

Here was a book I found really interesting around  this time: 

Almost Human: A Journey Into the World of Baboons

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0226777561

Shirley C. Strum - 2001 - ‎Nature

Almost Human recounts this story. Rereading the book, I am struck by the lack of a sense of urgency about conservation, except, ... Unfortunately, these environmental concerns were slow to spread, but by the mid-1980s there was a growing ...

What I found interesting about this book was how the Baboon tribe moved out of the trees and across the plains.

The hierarchies were "human like" in how they organized in that the younger teenage males were out on the periphery and would be picked off one by one by lions and such but if they survived these attacks they might get to move up in rank and class within the tribe of Baboons moving across the plains to another good hunting and feeding place with trees to escape the lions and such. The organization of the tribe moving was babies and the young in the center of the tribe surrounded by alpha females who were surrounded by the alpha males who were surrounded by beta females and then beta males and finally the risk taking teenage boys who were "expendable" but if they survived they would move up in rank because of the risks they took potentially to betas and then alphas possibly. So, the structure of the tribe as it moved through dangerous plains was a lot like human protection and defense structures moving through dangerous areas too. By taking risks when you were a young male you could move up and mate with beta or even alpha females eventually too or at some point be the leader of the tribe as the Alpha Alpha male of the tribe as long as you could defend that status from other males and from lions attacking your tribe.

So, the similarities between human hierarchies and Baboon hierarchies are almost exactly the same during a wartime or dangerous experience for the tribe whether it be baboons or humans historically speaking.