Life history theory and human evolution : a chronicle of ideas and findings

Update Item Information
Publication Type pre-print
School or College College of Social & Behavioral Science
Department Anthropology
Creator Hawkes, Kristen
Title Life history theory and human evolution : a chronicle of ideas and findings
Date 2006-01-01
Description Fertility ends at similar ages in women and female chimpanzees, but humans usually live longer and mature later. We also differ from our closest living relatives in weaning infants before they can feed themselves. The comparisons pose questions about when and why the distinctively human life history traits evolved in our lineage. Here I outline the basic framework of the field of life history evolution and, against that background, chronicle past inquiries into each of these distinctively human traits. The chronicle covers discovery and description, guided sometimes by hypotheses about underlying developmental mechanisms and sometimes by hypotheses about adaptive effects. Following the review, I discuss the continuing importance of distinguishing between questions about mechanisms and adaptive effects in light of accumulating fossil evidence and progress in genomics. I conclude with a brief reference to the most influential adaptive hypothesis to date, the Hunting hypothesis, and some of the accumulating empirical challenges to it, setting the stage for current debates addressed in subsequent chapters.
Type Text
Publisher School for Advanced Research (SAR)
First Page 45
Last Page 93
Language eng
Bibliographic Citation Hawkes, K. (2006). Life history theory and human evolution ; a chronicle of ideas and findings. In The Evolution of Human Life History. K. Hawkes and R Paine, eds, Santa Fe and Oxford, SAR Press, 45-93.
Rights Management (c) Oxford University Press. This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in The Evolution of Human Life History following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Hawkes, K. (2006). Life history theory and human evolution : a chronicle of ideas and findings. In The Evolution of Human Life History. K. Hawkes and R Paine, eds, Santa Fe and Oxford, SAR Press is available online at: https://sarweb.org/?sar_press_evolution_of_human_life_history-p:sar_press_advanced_seminar_series.
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 142,049 bytes
Identifier uspace,19336
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Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6xm1qqk