Who invented culture

 In the early seventies my wife and I attended a talk given by Margret Mead at a local university.  The campus editor was chastised by Ms. Mead for attacking her and not her point of view.  It was memorable.  

"It had begun with a set of vexing questions at the heart of philosophy, religion, and the human sciences: What are the natural divisions of human society? Is morality universal? How should we treat people whose beliefs and habits are different from our own? It would end with a root-and-branch reconsideration of what it means to be social animals and the surrender of an easy confidence in the superiority of our own civilization. At stake were the consequences of an astonishing discovery: that our distant ancestors, at some point in their evolution, invented a thing we call culture." 

Today's selection -- from Gods of the Upper Air by Charles King. Margaret Mead arrives in Samoa:

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