#meaning it might be an incidental property of human extended lifespan and the increased risk of maternal and foetal death with age | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

underthehedge · 1 year ago

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I stg if anyone trots out the grandmother hypothesis you will end up in anthropology rant hell

Ok but, if you'd like to rant about it (or have a good rant you've already posted) I'd be interested in hearing it. Like, I was under the impression that the grandmother hypothesis was relatively well accepted, which, I guess it isn't?

Shout out to the ten primate species, four bat species, elephant shrews, and the Cairo spiny mouse. Nobody else gets it

#anthropology #seriously I didn't realise that was contentious #and I'm always down to hear someone go on an academic rant #trying to think what other reasons there could be for it now #all I've got so far is that it might be just one of those things that happens #that was less selected *for* as it was ''not deleterious enough'' to select against #e.g. the fact that chimps don't ordinarily have menopause but can have it if they live long enough #meaning it might be an incidental property of human extended lifespan and the increased risk of maternal and foetal death with age #means that there was no strong selection pressure to continue ovulating for longer as it may have had a negative fitness cost #vs. the increased fitness cost of being able to raise your last offspring to independence #rather than dying from pregnancy complications aged 60 and leaving behind several immature children #considering the sheer amount of time it takes for humans to reach maturity and the level of community resources it uses #stopping giving birth a couple of decades before you die focuses available resources on offspring most likely to survive y'know?#I mean humans do tend to be pretty communal in raising our young ofc #but I suspect survival outcomes in early humans were better when children had living parents

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