Ardrey postulou que os precursores do Australopithecus sobreviviron millóns de anos de seca no Mioceno e o Plioceno, mentres a sabana se estendía e as fragas se reducían, adaptándose ao estilo de caza das especies carnívoras. Os cambios nos métodos de supervivencia e organización social foron diferenciando gradualmente os pre-humanos dos outros primates. Os cambios na dieta propiciaron o desenvolvemento do cerebro humano.
A teoría do simio asasino postula que a agresión, un factor vital na caza con fins alimenticios, é unha característica fundamental que distingue os devanceiros do ser humano doutros primates.
Obra
Ficción
World's Beginning (1944).
The Brotherhood of Fear (1952).
Non ficción
African Genesis: A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man (1961).
Robert Ardrey era fillo do editor Robert Leslie Ardrey e da profesora Marie Haswell[2]. Acadou o graduado Phi Beta Kappa na University of Chicago, baixo a tutela de Thornton Wilder. En 1938 Ardrey casou con Helen Johnson, á que coñecera na universidade, divorciándose en 1960. Tiveron dous fillos, Ross e Daniel. En 1960 casou coa actriz de teatro surafricana Berdine Grunewald, que máis tarde ilustraría os seus libros.
O Arquivo Howard Gotlieb da Biblioteca Mugar Memorial da Universidade de Boston acolle a colección Robert Ardrey[14]
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Equally comfortable dealing with literary editors such as Bennett Cerf or moguls like Darryl F. Zanuck, he also retained his credibility in the intellectual realm by authoring texts on anthropology, history, and sociology that remain widely respected decades after their publication. The widening dates between Ardrey's film projects came as a result of his increasing literary activity, as he began generating screenplays and novels on his own in the early '50s and subsequently returned to his academic training in anthropology and the behavioral sciences. From the end of the 1950s, he kept his oar in both fields, film and academia, and occupied a virtually unique position in the Hollywoodpecking order because of his dual career. In 1962, he took on the daunting task of turning the World War I-era novel Los cuatro jinetes del Apocalipsis into relevant entertainment for the early '60s, authoring the screenplay for Vincente Minnelli's gargantuan 1962 all-star release.
…the longest flash forward in the history of movies: three million years, from bone club to artificial satellite, in a twenty-fourth of a second. (Extracto de Foreword, de Arthur C. Clarke.) (en inglés).
↑Paul Cremean (23 May 2006). "Peckinpah's West vs. Mann's Metropolis". Grover Watrous' Golden Egg. Arquivado dende o orixinal o 20 de maio de 2007. Consultado o 19 de outubro de 2010. Drawing heavily from the work of Robert Ardrey, controversial sociologist and author of ‘African Genesis’ and ‘The Territorial Imperative,’ Peckinpah ascribed to the belief that man is by nature territorial, brutal and elementally animal.
↑"Ardrey, Robert". Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center (HGARC), Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University. Arquivado dende o orixinal o 15 de outubro de 2012. Consultado o 19 de outubro de 2010. Also included in the collection is Ardrey’s last manuscript, The Education of Robert Ardrey: An Autobiography (ca. 1980), edited and prefaced by Ardrey’s son, Daniel Ardrey.
