The life history of human foraging: Cross-cultural and individual variation

Koster, Jeremy, McElreath, Richard, Hill, Kim, Yu, Douglas, Shepard, Glenn, Van Vliet, Nathalie, Gurven, Michael, Trumble, Benjamin, Bird, Rebecca Bliege, Bird, Douglas, Codding, Brian, Coad, Lauren, Pacheco-Cobos, Luis, Winterhalder, Bruce, Lupo, Karen, Schmitt, Dave, Sillitoe, Paul, Franzen, Margaret, Alvard, Michael, Venkataraman, Vivek, Kraft, Thomas, Endicott, Kirk, Beckerman, Stephen, Marks, Stuart A., Headland, Thomas, Pangau-Adam, Margaretha, Siren, Anders, Kramer, Karen, Greaves, Russell, Reyes-García, Victoria, Guèze, Maximilien, Duda, Romain, Fernández-Llamazares, Álvaro, Gallois, Sandrine, Napitupulu, Lucentezza, Ellen, Roy, Ziker, John, Nielsen, Martin R., Ready, Elspeth, Healey, Christopher and Ross, Cody (2020) The life history of human foraging: Cross-cultural and individual variation. Science Advances, 6 (26). ISSN 2375-2548

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Abstract

Human adaptation depends on the integration of slow life history, complex production skills, and extensive sociality. Refining and testing models of the evolution of human life history and cultural learning benefit from increasingly accurate measurement of knowledge, skills, and rates of production with age. We pursue this goal by inferring hunters’ increases and declines of skill from approximately 23,000 hunting records generated by more than 1800 individuals at 40 locations. The data reveal an average age of peak productivity between 30 and 35 years of age, although high skill is maintained throughout much of adulthood. In addition, there is substantial variation both among individuals and sites. Within study sites, variation among individuals depends more on heterogeneity in rates of decline than in rates of increase. This analysis sharpens questions about the coevolution of human life history and cultural adaptation.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	general ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1000
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Organisms and the Environment
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	17 Jul 2020 23:46
Last Modified:	14 May 2023 00:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/76168
DOI:	10.1126/sciadv.aax9070

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