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The life history of human foraging: Cross-cultural and individual variation

Koster, Jeremy; McElreath, Richard; Hill, Kim; Yu, Douglas; Shepard, Glenn; van Vliet, Nathalie; Gurven, Michael; Trumble, Benjamin; Bird, Rebecca Bliege; Bird, Douglas; Codding, Brian; Coad, Lauren; Pacheco-Cobos, Luis; Winterhalder, Bruce; Lupo, Karen; Schmitt, Dave; Sillitoe, Paul; Franzen, Margaret; Alvard, Michael; Venkataraman, Vivek; Kraft, Thomas; Endicott, Kirk; Beckerman, Stephen; Marks, Stuart A.; Headland, Thomas; Pangau-Adam, Margaretha; Siren, Anders; Kramer, Karen; Greaves, Russell; Reyes-García, Victoria; Guèze, Maximilien; Duda, Romain; Fernández-Llamazares, Álvaro; Gallois, Sandrine; Napitupulu, Lucentezza; Ellen, Roy; Ziker, John; Nielsen, Martin R.; Ready, Elspeth; Healey, Christopher; Ross, Cody

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Authors

Jeremy Koster

Richard McElreath

Kim Hill

Douglas Yu

Glenn Shepard

Nathalie van Vliet

Michael Gurven

Benjamin Trumble

Rebecca Bliege Bird

Douglas Bird

Brian Codding

Lauren Coad

Luis Pacheco-Cobos

Bruce Winterhalder

Karen Lupo

Dave Schmitt

Margaret Franzen

Michael Alvard

Vivek Venkataraman

Thomas Kraft

Kirk Endicott

Stephen Beckerman

Stuart A. Marks

Thomas Headland

Margaretha Pangau-Adam

Anders Siren

Karen Kramer

Russell Greaves

Victoria Reyes-García

Maximilien Guèze

Romain Duda

Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares

Sandrine Gallois

Lucentezza Napitupulu

Roy Ellen

John Ziker

Martin R. Nielsen

Elspeth Ready

Christopher Healey

Cody Ross



Abstract

Human adaptation depends on the integration of slow life history, complex production skills, and extensive sociality. Refining and testing models of the evolution of human life history and cultural learning benefit from increasingly accurate measurement of knowledge, skills, and rates of production with age. We pursue this goal by inferring hunters’ increases and declines of skill from approximately 23,000 hunting records generated by more than 1800 individuals at 40 locations. The data reveal an average age of peak productivity between 30 and 35 years of age, although high skill is maintained throughout much of adulthood. In addition, there is substantial variation both among individuals and sites. Within study sites, variation among individuals depends more on heterogeneity in rates of decline than in rates of increase. This analysis sharpens questions about the coevolution of human life history and cultural adaptation.

Citation

Koster, J., McElreath, R., Hill, K., Yu, D., Shepard, G., van Vliet, N., …Ross, C. (2020). The life history of human foraging: Cross-cultural and individual variation. Science Advances, 6(26), Article eaax9070. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax9070

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 17, 2020
Online Publication Date Jun 24, 2020
Publication Date 2020-06
Deposit Date Jul 15, 2020
Publicly Available Date Jul 15, 2020
Journal Science Advances
Publisher American Association for the Advancement of Science
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 6
Issue 26
Article Number eaax9070
DOI https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax9070

Files

Published Journal Article (2.1 Mb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.





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