Adaptive Radiation and Prejudice

I watched a show on the Science Channel today about "Flat-faced Man" , a fossil discovered in Kenya in 1999. Analysis showed that the fossil was a contemporary of Lucy, but was a different species.

It proved that humans, like other animals, evolved in an adaptive radiation pattern. In other words, there could be different variations of humans competing for the same resources at the same time. Previously, it was thought that humans were somehow different in that we evolved singularly.

Is prejudice is an evolutionary adaptation designed to allow one species to win out over another similar species? It would be easier to see another similar species as adversaries for scarce resources. Perhaps it made violence against the "other" easier in that competition for survival.

I can see similar interactions among, say, lions and leopards. And among the same species, the meerkat comes to mind. A meerkat family always fights outside meerkat families to maintain territory.

As homo sapiens ascended to the top of the heap, perhaps prejudice was easily turned within our species. We began seeing the different features of our fellow humans within our territory as a challenge to our stability and survival. The difference became a challenge to our group's hegemony over the "other".

Even if it is instinctual, it doesn't mean that we should give into the baser instinct of prejudice. It just reinforces that we must try to rise above it. But it does explain why prejudice is in all of us, as well as the violence that accompanies it.