What made humans the most successful animal species inhabiting the Earth? Most scientists believe that the key is the size of our brain. In his recent provocative book1, the anthropologist Craig Stanford presents original alternative to this question. According to Stanford, the answer to human uniqueness and evolutionary success is the hunting and sharing of meat. Based on behavior of apes and anthropological findings, Stanford is arguing that the origins of human intellegence are linked to the acquisition of meat through the cognitive capacities necessary for the strategic cooperation during the foraging and subsequent sharing of meat with group members.
In the present study, we propose yet another alternative hypothesis. We suggest that instead of meat, an increased role of defecation, accompanied by requirements for extrapersonal space and privacy, evoked individualistic traits in our ancestors, shaping minds and society of the early hominids. We show that studies of previously neglected but remarkable significance of defecation as an integral part of everyday activities may provide new insights to the origins of human behavior.