Mortal Rituals: What the Story of the Andes Survivors Tells Us About Human Evolution
Matt Rossano
Abstract
On December 21, 1972, sixteen young survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 were rescued after spending ten weeks stranded at the crash site of their plane, high in the remote Andes Mountains. The incident made international headlines and spawned several best-selling books, fueled partly by the fact that the young men had resorted to cannibalism to survive. This book examines this story from an evolutionary perspective, weaving together findings and ideas from anthropology, psychology, religion, and cognitive science. During their ordeal, these young men broke “civilized” taboos to fend of ... More
Keywords: Uruguayan Air Force, Andes Mountains, cannibalism, civilized thinking, social unity, individual sanity, emotional hardship, physical hardship, moral rituals
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 | Print ISBN-13: 9780231165006 |
| Published to Columbia Scholarship Online: November 2015 | DOI:10.7312/columbia/9780231165006.001.0001 |
