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. 1998 Feb 3;95(3):1336-9.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.95.3.1336.

Grandmothering, menopause, and the evolution of human life histories

K Hawkes  1 , J F O'Connell, N G Jones, H Alvarez, E L Charnov
Affiliations

Grandmothering, menopause, and the evolution of human life histories

K Hawkes et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

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.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Modified from A. H. Schultz (1969) The Life of Primates (20), page 149.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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    1. Hawkes K, O’Connell J F, Blurton Jones N G. In: Comparative Socioecology of Mammals and Man. Standen V, Foley R, editors. London: Blackwell; 1989. pp. 341–366.
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    1. Hawkes K, O’Connell J F, Blurton Jones N G. Curr Anthropol. 1995;36:688–700.

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