1/17/2024 0 Comments Forager puzzles 372![]() ![]() It is increasingly clear that patterns of human demography and sociality are interdependent and mutu- ally reinforcing, making it likely that they co-evolved during humans’ evolu- tionary history. Human social relationships-including support from extended family, cooperative pair- bonds between men and women, biparental care, and extensive cooperation between non-relatives-are likewise features that set humans apart from many other primates and mammals. ![]() ![]() The human species is an outlier in terms of demographic characteristics including lifespan, the duration of development, and menopause. These differences suggest that changes in diet have negatively affected Shuar growth and nutrition. Compared to Shuar, colonos were three times less likely to be stunted (OR = 0.33, P < 0.01) and Shiwiar were eight times less likely to be stunted (OR = 0.13, P = 0.01). Using NHANES standards, 41% of male and 38% of female Shuar were classified as stunted, versus 16% of male and 20% of female colonos. Mean weight-for-age z-scores were also negative for Shuar and colono juveniles, while mean BMI-for-age and weight-for-height z-scores were greater than zero for all three groups. Although, for all three groups, mean height-for-age z-scores were negative, Shuar z-scores were significantly lower than either colono or Shiwiar z-scores. We use differences between these populations in National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) z-scores to assess the effects of changing subsistence patterns on Shuar growth and nutrition. These include 1,384 indigenous Shuar from the Upano Valley of Ecuador and surrounding areas, 570 nonindigenous colono (or colonist) children from the same area, and 42 Shiwiar from the interior of Ecuador. We describe and compare the growth of three groups of juveniles, aged 0-18, who experience different degrees of market integration and acculturation in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Our results illustrate the importance of transfers in several key domains and suggest that the absence of transfers would greatly increase human mortality rates throughout the life course. Using medical data and ethnographic interviews, we explore several types of common risks experienced by Tsimane forager-horticulturalists, and quantify the types and targets of aid. In conjunction with changes in the age-profile of production, the impacts of resource transfers and other forms of cooperation on reducing mortality likely played an important role in selection on post-reproductive lifespan throughout human evolution. ![]() The use of complex cooperative strategies to minimize risk is a necessary precursor for selecting further reductions in mortality rate in late adulthood. In this paper we highlight the role of resource transfers and non-material assistance within and across generations in shaping low human mortality rates. Although most primates are social, humans are highly cooperative and social in ways that likely co-evolved with the slow human life history. Humans are the longest living and slowest growing of all primates. Here we present cross-cultural evidence that individuals cultivate two other niches, information and tool production, that serve (among other things) to buffer health risk. One such niche that has been well-documented is meat-sharing. We call this phenomenon social niche specialization. We therefore expect that humans have evolved psychological mechanisms motivating the pursuit and cultivation of a difficult-to-replace social role based on the provisioning of a benefit that confers a fitness advantage on its recipients. Individuals in egalitarian foraging bands can provide a number of valuable benefits, such as defense, diplomacy, food, healing, information, technical skill, or trading savvy. Additionally, adaptations are hypothesized to have co-evolved that motivate individuals to attend to and value those who recurrently provide them with important benefits so they are willing in turn to provide costly care when a valued person is disabled or in dire need. Selection pressure from health risk is hypothesized to have shaped adaptations motivating individuals to attempt to become valued by other individuals by generously and recurrently providing beneficial goods and/or services to them because this strategy encouraged beneficiaries to provide costly health care to their benefactors when the latter were sick or injured. ![]()
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