Richard Walter Wrangham (born 1948) is an English
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
and
primatologist; he is Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University. His research and writing have involved ape behavior, human evolution, violence, and cooking.
Biography
Wrangham was born in
Leeds
Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...
,
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...
.
Following his years on the faculty of the
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
, he became the Ruth Moore Professor of
Biological Anthropology
Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a natural science discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly fro ...
at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
and his research group is now part of the newly established Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. He is a
MacArthur fellow.
He is co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, the long-term study of the Kanyawara chimpanzees in
Kibale National Park
Kibale National Park is a national park in western Uganda, protecting moist evergreen rainforest. It is in size and ranges between and in elevation. Despite encompassing primarily moist evergreen forest, it contains a diverse array of landsca ...
, Uganda. His research culminates in the study of
human evolution
''Homo sapiens'' is a distinct species of the hominid family of primates, which also includes all the great apes. Over their evolutionary history, humans gradually developed traits such as Human skeletal changes due to bipedalism, bipedalism, de ...
in which he draws conclusions based on the behavioural ecology of apes. As a graduate student, Wrangham studied under
Robert Hinde and
Jane Goodall.
Wrangham is known predominantly for his work in the ecology of primate social systems, the evolutionary history of human aggression (in his 1996 book with Dale Peterson, ''
Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence'' and his 2019 work ''
The Goodness Paradox''), and his research in cooking (summarized in his book, ''
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human'') and
self-domestication.
Wrangham has been instrumental in identifying behaviors considered "human-specific" in chimpanzees, including culture and with
Eloy Rodriguez, chimpanzee
self-medication.
Among the recent courses he teaches in the Human Evolutionary Biology (HEB) concentration at Harvard are HEB 1330 Primate Social Behaviour and HEB 1565 Theories of Sexual Coercion (co-taught with Professor Diane Rosenfeld from Harvard Law School). In March 2008, he was appointed House Master of
Currier House at
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...
. He received an honorary degree in Doctor of Science from
Oglethorpe University in 2011.
Research
Wrangham began his career as a researcher at
Jane Goodall's long-term
common chimpanzee
The chimpanzee (; ''Pan troglodytes''), also simply known as the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close relative the ...
field study in
Gombe Stream National Park
Gombe National Park () is a national park in Tanzania, located in the Kigoma District of the Kigoma Region. It was formerly called Gombe Stream National Park.Tanzania National Parks“Gombe Stream National Park”, 2008.
Overview
Established in ...
in
Tanzania
Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...
. He befriended fellow primatologist
Dian Fossey and assisted her in setting up her nonprofit
mountain gorilla
The mountain gorilla (''Gorilla beringei beringei'') is one of the two subspecies of the eastern gorilla. It is listed as endangered by the IUCN .
There are two populations: One is found in the Virunga Mountains, Virunga volcanic mountains of C ...
conservation organization, the
Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund (originally the Digit Fund).
Wrangham has focused recently on the role cooking has played in human evolution. In ''
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human'', he argued that cooking food is obligatory for humans as a result of biological adaptations and that cooking, in particular the consumption of cooked
tuber
Tubers are a type of enlarged structure that plants use as storage organs for nutrients, derived from stems or roots. Tubers help plants perennate (survive winter or dry months), provide energy and nutrients, and are a means of asexual reproduc ...
s, might explain the increase in hominid brain sizes, smaller teeth and jaws, and decrease in
sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different Morphology (biology), morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecy, di ...
that occurred roughly 1.8 million years ago.
Some anthropologists disagree with Wrangham's ideas, arguing that no solid evidence has been found to support Wrangham's claims, though Wrangham and colleagues, among others, have demonstrated in the laboratory the effects of cooking on energetic availability: cooking denatures proteins, gelatinizes starches, and helps kill pathogens.
The mainstream explanation is that human ancestors, prior to the advent of cooking, turned to eating meats, which then caused the evolutionary shift to smaller guts and larger brains.
Personal life
Wrangham married Elizabeth Ross in 1980 and has three sons. His work of studying the essential violence of chimpanzees caused Wrangham to not eat meat for 40 years.
Bibliography
Books
* ''
Demonic Males'' with Peterson, D., Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. 1996. .
*Smuts, B.B., Cheney, D.L. Seyfarth, R.M., Wrangham, R.W., & Struhsaker, T.T. (Eds.) (1987). ''Primate Societies''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*''
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human''. Basic Books, 2009.
*''
The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution''. Pantheon, 2019.
Papers
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Eds. Muller, M. & Wrangham, R. (2009). 'Sexual Coercion in Primates and Humans'.
Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou.
The pres ...
, Cambridge, MA.
References
External links
Website of Kibale Chimpanzee ProjectDepartment of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard UniversityVideo (with mp3 available) of interview about his research with Wranghamby
John Horgan on
Bloggingheads.tv
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wrangham, Richard
Living people
1948 births
Harvard University faculty
Human evolution theorists
Primatologists
MacArthur Fellows
University of Michigan faculty
Academics from Yorkshire
Academics from Leeds
Alumni of the University of Cambridge
Alumni of the University of Oxford
Corresponding fellows of the British Academy