Childhood and advances in human tool use

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 232-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Cognitive Trait ◽  
Species Specific

AbstractHuman life history incorporates childhood, a lengthy post-weaning period of dependency. This species-specific period provides an opportunity for extensive learning and for sophisticated cultural behaviors to develop, including crucial tool use skills. Although I agree that no individual cognitive trait singularly differentiates humans from other animals, I suggest here that without childhood, the traits that are key to human tool use would not emerge.

scholarly journals Aging and the Inevitable Limit to Human Life Span

Gerontology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 432-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Vijg ◽  
Eric Le Bourg
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Life Span ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Life History Strategies ◽  
Close Connection ◽  
Age At Death ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
Human Life Span

There is a long-lasting debate about a natural limit to human life span, and it has been argued that the maximum reported age at death, which has not increased for ca 25 years, fluctuates around 115 years, even if some persons live beyond this age. We argue that the close connection of species-specific longevity with life history strategies explains why human life span is limited and cannot reach the considerably longer life spans of several other species.

scholarly journals The Life History of Learning Subsistence Skills among Hadza and BaYaka Foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo

Human Nature ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheina Lew-Levy ◽  
Erik J. Ringen ◽  
Alyssa N. Crittenden ◽  
Ibrahim A. Mabulla ◽  
Tanya Broesch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Age Of Acquisition ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Republic Of Congo ◽  
Cross Cultural Differences ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic

AbstractAspects of human life history and cognition, such as our long childhoods and extensive use of teaching, theoretically evolved to facilitate the acquisition of complex tasks. The present paper empirically examines the relationship between subsistence task difficulty and age of acquisition, rates of teaching, and rates of oblique transmission among Hadza and BaYaka foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo. We further examine cross-cultural variation in how and from whom learning occurred. Learning patterns and community perceptions of task difficulty were assessed through interviews. We found no relationship between task difficulty, age of acquisition, and oblique transmission, and a weak but positive relationship between task difficulty and rates of teaching. While same-sex transmission was normative in both societies, tasks ranked as more difficult were more likely to be transmitted by men among the BaYaka, but not among the Hadza, potentially reflecting cross-cultural differences in the sexual division of subsistence and teaching labor. Further, the BaYaka were more likely to report learning via teaching, and less likely to report learning via observation, than the Hadza, possibly owing to differences in socialization practices.

Language and life history: A new perspective on the development and evolution of human language

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Locke ◽  
Barry Bogin
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Adult Development ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Juvenile Period ◽  
Development Of Language ◽  
New Perspective

It has long been claimed that Homo sapiens is the only species that has language, but only recently has it been recognized that humans also have an unusual pattern of growth and development. Social mammals have two stages of pre-adult development: infancy and juvenility. Humans have two additional prolonged and pronounced life history stages: childhood, an interval of four years extending between infancy and the juvenile period that follows, and adolescence, a stage of about eight years that stretches from juvenility to adulthood. We begin by reviewing the primary biological and linguistic changes occurring in each of the four pre-adult ontogenetic stages in human life history. Then we attempt to trace the evolution of childhood and juvenility in our hominin ancestors. We propose that several different forms of selection applied in infancy and childhood; and that, in adolescence, elaborated vocal behaviors played a role in courtship and intrasexual competition, enhancing fitness and ultimately integrating performative and pragmatic skills with linguistic knowledge in a broad faculty of language. A theoretical consequence of our proposal is that fossil evidence of the uniquely human stages may be used, with other findings, to date the emergence of language. If important aspects of language cannot appear until sexual maturity, as we propose, then a second consequence is that the development of language requires the whole of modern human ontogeny. Our life history model thus offers new ways of investigating, and thinking about, the evolution, development, and ultimately the nature of human language.

scholarly journals Accurate age estimation in small-scale societies

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (31) ◽  
pp. 8205-8210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoan Diekmann ◽  
Daniel Smith ◽  
Pascale Gerbault ◽  
Mark Dyble ◽  
Abigail E. Page ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Bayesian Approach ◽  
Age Estimation ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Monte Carlo Algorithm ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Ranking Order

Precise estimation of age is essential in evolutionary anthropology, especially to infer population age structures and understand the evolution of human life history diversity. However, in small-scale societies, such as hunter-gatherer populations, time is often not referred to in calendar years, and accurate age estimation remains a challenge. We address this issue by proposing a Bayesian approach that accounts for age uncertainty inherent to fieldwork data. We developed a Gibbs sampling Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm that produces posterior distributions of ages for each individual, based on a ranking order of individuals from youngest to oldest and age ranges for each individual. We first validate our method on 65 Agta foragers from the Philippines with known ages, and show that our method generates age estimations that are superior to previously published regression-based approaches. We then use data on 587 Agta collected during recent fieldwork to demonstrate how multiple partial age ranks coming from multiple camps of hunter-gatherers can be integrated. Finally, we exemplify how the distributions generated by our method can be used to estimate important demographic parameters in small-scale societies: here, age-specific fertility patterns. Our flexible Bayesian approach will be especially useful to improve cross-cultural life history datasets for small-scale societies for which reliable age records are difficult to acquire.

The Evolution of Human Infancy: Why It Helps to Be Helpless

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen R. Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural Adaptation ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Cultural Adaptations ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
Emotional Relationships

Humans have a prolonged childhood, which begins with an immature developmental state at birth. We take care of these helpless infants through a variety of cultural adaptations, including material culture, provisioning of food, and shared child care. Our species has long been characterized as having secondary altriciality, but an examination of human life history shows that we are fundamentally precocial, despite seeming helpless at birth. Human babies are also relatively large and overall require substantial attention and energy from caregivers. Previous work has focused on how culture permits us to give birth to helpless young and how our cultural adaptation solves problems stemming from encephalization. The birth of these dependent, costly creatures poses challenges but also creates opportunities by enhancing the development of social and emotional relationships with caregivers as well as language acquisition and enculturation. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume 50 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Evolution of Human Life History

2020 ◽  
pp. 753-767
Author(s):  
B. Bogin ◽  
C. Varea
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Human Life

scholarly journals Age-Appropriate Wisdom? Ethnobiological Knowledge Ontogeny in Pastoralist Mexican Choyeros

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Schniter ◽  
Shane Macfarlan ◽  
Juan J. Garcia ◽  
Gorgonio Ruiz‑Campos ◽  
Diego Guevara Beltran ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Life History Theory ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Knowledge Assessment ◽  
Baja California Sur ◽  
Age Appropriate ◽  
Age And Sex ◽  
Embodied Capital

We investigate whether age profiles of ethnobiological knowledge developmentare consistent with predictions derived from life history theory about the timing ofproductivity and reproduction. Life history models predict complementary knowledgeprofiles developing across the lifespan for women and men as they experiencechanges in embodied capital and the needs of dependent offspring. We evaluatethese predictions using an ethnobiological knowledge assessment tool developedfor an off-grid pastoralist population known as Choyeros, from Baja California Sur,Mexico. Our results indicate that while individuals acquire knowledge of most dangerousitems and edible resources by early adulthood, knowledge of plants and animalsrelevant to the age and sex divided labor domains and ecologies (e.g., women’shouse gardens, men’s herding activities in the wilderness) continues to develop intomiddle adulthood but to different degrees and at different rates for men and women.As the demands of offspring on parents accumulate with age, reproductive-agedadults continue to develop their knowledge to meet their children’s needs. After controllingfor vision, our analysis indicates that many post-reproductive adults showthe greatest ethnobiological knowledge. These findings extend our understanding ofthe evolved human life history by illustrating how changes in embodied capital andthe needs of dependent offspring predict the development of men’s and women’sethnobiological knowledge across the lifespan.

scholarly journals Effect of NaCl on seed germination in some Centaurium Hill. Species (Gentianaceae)

2007 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Zivkovic ◽  
M. Devic ◽  
B. Filipovic ◽  
Z. Giba ◽  
D. Grubisic
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Salt Tolerance ◽  
Seed Germination ◽  
Gibberellic Acid ◽  
White Light ◽  
The Other ◽  
Distilled Water ◽  
Nacl Concentration ◽  
History Of ◽  
Species Specific

The influence of high NaCl concentrations on seed germination in both light and darkness was examined in the species Centaurium pulchellum, C. erythraea, C. littorale, C. spicatum, and C. tenuiflorum. Salt tolerance was found to depend on the life history of the seeds. To be specific, seeds of all five species failed to complete germination when exposed to continuous white light if kept all the time in the presence of 100-200 mM and greater NaCl concentrations. However, when after two weeks NaCl was rinsed from the seeds and the seeds were left in distilled water under white light for an additional two weeks, all species completed germination to a certain extent. The percent of germination not only depended on NaCl concentration in the prior medium, but was also species specific. Thus, seeds of C. pulchellum, C. erythraea, and C. littorale completed germination well almost irrespective of the salt concentration previously experienced. On the other hand, seeds of C. tenuiflorum completed germination poorly if NaCl concentrations in the prior media were greater than 200 mM. When seeds after washing were transferred to darkness for an additional 14 days, they failed to complete germination if previously imbibed on media containing NaCl concentrations greater than 400 mM. However, the seeds of all species, even if previously imbibed at 800 mM NaCl, could be induced to complete germination in darkness by 1 mM gibberellic acid. .

scholarly journals The Domestication of Evolution

1983 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 283-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond P. Coppinger ◽  
Charles Kay Smith
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Sexual Maturity ◽  
Domestic Animals ◽  
Stable Environment ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Species Specific

A coming ‘Age of Interdependent Forms’ seems destined to mark the success of what could be called ‘despecialized/interspecific fitness’ among neotenic strains (perpetuating juvenile traits) of species such as humans and domestic animals. Humans as well as the first domesticants underwent a neotenic evolution in the wild during the repeated interglacial periods which, acting on a number of mammalian forms, selected against adult species-specific ancestral adaptations to a stable environment. Neotenic species continue to look and behave more like ancestral youths than adults—even after sexual maturity and throughout their life-history. As they retain lifelong youthful dependency motivations, they can easily, under suitable conditions, become interdependent forms. By the time of melting of the last Pleistocene glacier, all the domestic partners had already become more dependency-prone than formerly, and were behaviourally despecialized enough to form the alliance that is now changing the order of Nature.

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