Russell Dale Guthrie b. 1936
The zoologist, professor and writer R Dale Guthrie writes
well on the ways humans (and other animals) establish status and attract mates.
Our physical signals and behaviours originating in childhood are discussed in
insightful ways. Guthrie has written extensively on prehistoric life, his
opinions informed by such sources as animal remains and cave paintings. Guthrie
believed himself to be working in a new discipline he called 'Human Social
Anatomy' blending palaeontology and anthropology, human ethology and human
evolution with social psychology. He wrote of our ‘body hot spots’, features
that have evolved to improve an individual's chances of producing offspring
that survive to breed a third generation. He examines how visual status and
‘organs’ can help with threat displays, copulatory lures and the facilitation
of cooperation, and how the antithesis of these can also be advantageous.
Read Body Hot Spots (1976) Van Nostrand Reinhold