Karen Kramer, Harvard UniversityHow Did There Get To Be So Many of Us: Life History Perspectives on the Human Potential for Population GrowthTime: 12:30 pm on 11.6.2009 The human capacity for population growth has profound effects on people’s lives today, and is one of the remarkable stories of our evolutionary history. Demographically the human reproductive potential can be attributed to short birth intervals and high child survivorship. But it is also fundamentally shaped by unique features of human subsistence and childhood. Drawing from life history and demographic perspectives and my research among South American foragers and Maya farmers, the seminar will focus on three questions. How does the relationship between age at first birth and economic independence differs between humans and our closest relatives? How are the economics and biology of childhood related to the demographic advantage of humans? What do we know about life history in the past and changes in the relationship between mothers and young? Because of the long period of human juvenility, children often are characterized as expensive to raise and demanding of maternal time and resources. I will discuss an alternative perspective. Because humans in traditional societies exchange food and labor across ages, it links older and younger generations in an economic relationship where transfers occur bidirectionally. Compared to our closest relatives, who are limited by unidirectional flows, bidirectional resource and labor transfers set humans apart and reduce constraints on reproductive budgets. |
