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Palaeolithic Grandmothers? Life History Theory and Early Homo
Author(s) -
Kennedy G.E.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of the royal anthropological institute
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.62
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1467-9655
pISSN - 1359-0987
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9655.00163
Subject(s) - survivorship curve , subsistence agriculture , demography , argument (complex analysis) , lineage (genetic) , developmental psychology , ethnology , biology , history , psychology , sociology , ecology , population , biochemistry , gene , agriculture
The acknowledged success of early Homo has generally been thought to reflect male‐dominated provisioning and associated patterns of co‐operative social organization; recently, however, such conclusions have been challenged with the argument that post‐menopausal females, instead, played a significant role in early human subsistence activities; males, it has been proposed, had a very minor role in food acquisition in early Homo . The fossil record, however, indicates minimal old‐age survivorship of either sex and heavy young adult mortality, a pattern which is also seen in larger prehistoric and ethnographic samples. Heavy young adult mortality, when combined with characteristically slow maturation, represents a paradox which humans have solved through new reproductive strategies (early weaning and alloparenting) and new life history stages (childhood and adolescence). Stone tools, when used to acquire marrow and brain tissue to feed needful youngsters, may also have been among the strategies developed in response to frequent early parental death.