Shirley Storum Almost Human Summary

Almost Human a Book Critique
The book Almost Human by Shirley Strum is a combination of the story of her life spent with the Papio Anubis or Baboons and the research she collected over the course of many years about them. Strum’s research became revolutionary in the academic world for anthropologists and scholars alike for her many discoveries into the lives of baboons that were previously unknown or misunderstood. These discoveries were focused on male baboon aggression and social strategies within a group of baboons called the Pumphouse Gang from which the majority of her research was based off of. One of her greatest challenges that she recounts in her book is that of her fight to save and protect the baboons. That is when she takes the opportunity to reach out to her audience and promote the importance of primates and why they are worth protecting. Strum’s journey to better understand baboons in the wild is full of ups and downs and incredible discoveries that would change how people see primates and

would open the door way to future research of primates and their importance to the world.
Shirley Strum wrote this book in a way that conveyed a story and not just a collection of her research on the baboons she studied. The book unfolds in a way that is easy to understand and the audience is able to stay interested through the humor, drama, and excitement of the daily lives of the Pumphouse Gang. Though not all of her research came from this group alone, her story began with them. She described how much the Pumphouse Gang members taught her about baboons and it was with this group that she made her revolutionary discoveries (Strum, 1987). Over the course of many years Strum collected a plethora of data that disproved the importance of aggression in male baboons, the significance and complexity of social strategy, and the importance of conservation of primates in general. The importance of conserving primates came in the latter half of her book when she wrote of her journey of relocating three baboon troops, including the Pumphouse Gang, out of fear of them all being killed off by farmers (Strum, 1987). Strum’s journey into the world of baboons led to several changes in how scientists and people in general perceived baboons and it was these new concepts that she focused on the most.
Throughout her studies Strum discovered that the original idea that a baboon male’s position in his group was not built and kept through aggression. The male baboons whom she observed that helped to debunk this concept were Ray, Bo, and David. When Ray tried to become a new member of the Pumphouse Gang he had to become friends with one of the females of the group before he was accepted into it, instead of aggressively pushing his way into the Pumphouse Gang. Bo and David both competed in the Pumphouse Gang to make friends and gain future mates but only succeeded when they didn’t use aggression. Strum also found that the most successful male baboons in a given group were those that had what she called ‘long-term residency’. These were male baboons that had stayed with a particular group for a really long time and she learned that those with ‘long-term residency’ actually used the least amount of aggression compared to the newest members (Strum, 1987). The discovery that males did not rely on their aggression, and that their size and physical strength were irrelevant in the fight for gaining female friends, or mates, created a change in the academic community. These findings could potentially create a chain effect for people that may begin to question just how much they truly know about primates, especially if something this relevant to the understanding of social behavior in baboons was overlooked or missed so easily.
Instead of using aggression to climb the social and hierarchal ladders of their group’s, male baboons had to develop special social strategies in order to be successful in creating friends, mates, and alliances. The baboons Bo and David both chose different strategies to climb the social ladder. Bo being the outsider and newest member of the Pumphouse Gang tried the more aggressive approach, but was unsuccessful and got into a lot of trouble due to this and as a result many of the females wanted nothing to do with him. David was a native born to the Pumphouse Gang and he tried a more diplomatic approach. This eventually worked for him and his kindness toward the females paid off and he gained new friends and future potential mates (Strum, 1987). Even females would use social strategies to get what they wanted; Peggy, a female baboon of the Pumphouse Gang, would use her friendships with the males in her group to gain food or help in disputes (Strum, 1987). Strum’s initial research on social strategies and concepts has led to further and more in-depth research on the subject. In Nga Nguyen’s article on mother-infant care mothers of lower social status were found to be more protective and less encouraging of infant independence out of fear of their child being harmed by others or bullied. Further, baboon mothers were found to be more inclined to encourage their male offspring to explore further away from them than their daughters because of the matriline system that existed in the baboon culture. They knew the males would eventually leave their group and should get used to exploring further away on their own, whereas the females would never leave (Nguyen, 2012). These research studies have been essential in better understanding baboon behavior and perhaps even how humans also may have behaved in the past.
Shirley Strum believed that by unlocking the secrets to baboon behaviors would help humans to better understand how we may have behaved during our evolutionary journey all the way to today. She argued that baboons have much to teach society and they must be protected and not allowed to disappear into history books, especially when there is still so much more to learn about them. Strum demonstrates the importance of these primates when she fights extensively to save the Pumphouse Gang and two other baboon groups from being killed off by farmers due to crop raiding by relocating them to Colcheccio and Chololo respectively (Strum, 1987). Through her research Strum attempts to promote conservation of baboons and primates in general with the argument that primate studies are important to learning about human evolution and behavior. However, other scholars have taken different approaches when promoting the need to protect and conserve primates. In Marilyn A. Norconk’s article she expresses how important primates are to conservation of environments by acting as seed dispersers in their natural environment and is thus expressing another reason why primates, such as baboons, need defending (Norconk, 2011). These arguments combined proved how primates are interconnected to so many different parts of the world that can be affected greatly by their loss or disappearance.
Strum’s love of baboons was conveyed throughout her entire book and she worked hard to try and bring this love to her audience.

She did this by educating her readers’ on the baboon life, by informing them of new discoveries about them, and expressing how the continued study of primates is still very important to help further our understanding of human behavior and human evolution. This book was very informative, properly organized, and kept the reader’s attention without falter. Strum led the way for incredible future findings and discoveries into the world of primates and what they have to offer humanity. The courage she had to go against leading opinions and ideas in the scholarly world helped to pave the way for future anthropologists to do the same and to not just agree with previous findings. To search for their own truths and conclusions, because of this Shirley Strum’s research will continue to reach and inspire the minds of generations to

come.

Bibliography

Nguyen, Nga, Laurence Gesquiere, Susan C. Alberts, Jeanne Altmann. Sex differences in the
mother-neonate relationship in wild baboons: social, experiential and hormonal
correlates. Animal Behavior 83 (2012).

Norconk, Marilyn A., Sude Boinski, Pierre-Michel Forget. Primates in 21st Century Ecosystems:
Does Primate Conservation Promote Ecosystem Conservation? American Journal of
Primatology. 73.3-8 (2011).

Strum, Shirley C. Almost Human: A Journey into the World of Baboons. New York: Random
House, 1987.