Chapter 13 Human Survival and Life History in Evolutionary Perspective

A PRIMARY GOAL of evolutionary anthropology is to determine and quantify differences between humans and other species, especially our primate relatives, and to reconstruct the evolutionary history of our species. As a species of seven billion individuals, humans occupy almost every habitat on the planet. Our exceptionally long lives, encephalized brains, extreme sociality, and penchant for cumulative cultural learning have all likely contributed to the biological success of Homo sapiens. Evolutionary anthropology has the goal of describing human universals while also explaining variation among and within human populations in genes, behavior, psychology, and culture. This chapter focuses on human survival and life history: theoretical approaches and key features of human adaptability across time and space. I focus on smallscale societies of huntergatherers, because more than 90% of human history has been spent living in them. Even though domestication is a more recent feature of human societies, I also include foragerhorticulturalists because they share many features with huntergatherers, such as natural fertility, egalitarianism, kinbased society, high work effort, and similar life spans. The fi rst section summarizes several evolutionary approaches to studying humans. The second section characterizes human subsistence and sociality as important aspects of evolved life history. The third section integrates cultural learning and psychological adaptations related to social cognition and predator avoidance. I conclude by suggesting directions for future research. Human Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences