The descent of woman by elaine morgan5/30/2023 ![]() was that people are different from apes because apes’ ancestors stayed in the trees and our own ancestors went out onto the plain and became hunters,” she recalled. ![]() ![]() An avid reader of popular science books, Elaine Morgan had found herself growing increasingly irritated by theories, propounded by writers such as Robert Ardrey and Desmond Morris, which painted a picture of human evolution based around the needs of males chasing game on the savannah. Before that, however, in 1972, she had scored an unexpected success with The Descent of Woman, which became, almost by accident, a bestseller and an important text of the Women’s Liberation movement. Her script for a Horizon documentary about Joey Deacon, the disabled fundraiser, won her the Prix Italia in 1975 and in 1979 her serialisation of Vera Brittain’s wartime memoir, Testament of Youth, won her the Royal Television Society’s writer of the year award. As a television writer Elaine Morgan wrote dozens of drama series for the BBC, winning two Baftas and two Writers’ Guild awards. Elaine Morgan, who has died aged 92, rose from a poverty-stricken upbringing in the Welsh valleys to become an award-winning television writer and, more controversially, a proponent of a feminist theory of evolution. ![]()
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