Amazon Women wrote:
>Nean@derthal wrote "WARFARE IS AS NATURAL
>AS AGRICULTURE." and seems to argue in
>defense of men being violent and for violence
>being a human trait shared by women—which
>is isnt.

No, you totally missed my point. NEITHER warfare nor agriculture are "natural." They have largely arisen from radical changes in how most humans live. Actually, to be more correct, it is arguably agriculture that has led us to modern warfare as we know it.

As for violence, we need to distinguish "violence" from "warfare." They are not the same thing. For that matter, what IS violence? Are lions violent? Chimpanzees? If so, violence is "natural." And if not, then you're defining violence as a purely human trait. You can't have it both ways.

As for the books, one needs to distinguish between scientific facts and plausible hypotheses. Some of these books do a fine job of looking at the scientific evidence (as we currently know it) and then placing a significant number of hypotheses on top of that evidence. These hypothese are often plausible, but also are often stacked upon each other, creating a theoretical house-of-cards. Not that these books should be ignored, but let's not forget that their instructive value should be seen as primarily theortetical rather than as scientific history.

For more on the Gatherer/Hunter peoples of the Kalahari (from an expressly feminist perspective) you might enjoy Marjorie Shostak's book, "Nisa: The Life and Words of a Kung Woman" (Harvard University Press, 1981).

Gotta go now... more later.