Grandmothering, Menopause, and the Evolution of Human Life Histories

Long postmenopausal lifespans distinguish humans from all other primates. This pattern may have evolved with mother--child food sharing, a practice that allowed aging females to enhance their daughters' fertility, thereby increasing selection against senescence. Combined with Charnov's dim...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 1998-02, Vol.95 (3), p.1336-1339
Main Authors: Hawkes, K., O'Connell, J. F., N. G. Blurton Jones, Alvarez, H., Charnov, E. L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adults
Age
Animals
Anthropology
Apes
Biological Evolution
Chimpanzees
Daughters
Evolution
Family Characteristics
Female
Human fertility
Humans
Longevity - physiology
Menopause
Models, Psychological
Mortality
Mother-Child Relations
Mothers
Postmenopause - physiology
Primates
Social Sciences
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Summary:Long postmenopausal lifespans distinguish humans from all other primates. This pattern may have evolved with mother--child food sharing, a practice that allowed aging females to enhance their daughters' fertility, thereby increasing selection against senescence. Combined with Charnov's dimensionless assembly rules for mammalian life histories, this hypothesis also accounts for our late maturity, small size at weaning, and high fertility. It has implications for past human habitat choice and social organization and for ideas about the importance of extended learning and paternal provisioning in human evolution.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.95.3.1336