Bootsma, Pyter D. (2021) The evolution of childhood: The role of children in human life history, cooperative breeding, and sociality. Bachelor's Thesis, Biology.
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Abstract
Anthropology is a continuous effort of understanding the evolutionary origins of the modern human, and the implications of features that are uniquely human and have coevolved for millions of years. One theory considers childhood as an essential life-history element of the modern human. The implications of childhood are profuse: early weaning, a short interbirth interval, and raising multiple dependents at once. This would require high-quality nutrition and cooperative breeding to be possible, providing an argument for the evolution of sociality and a large brain. Yet modern human biology is so complementary that these traits seem prerequisites for one another and the evolutionary origins are difficult to dissect. I this thesis I try to answer the question “Is the evolution of childhood the original (coevolutionary) stimulant for the evolution of cooperative breeding and the concurrent uniquely human life history?” and I make an argument against the evolutionary significance of childhood in a literature study. Although childhood is unique to humans and important in the human cooperative breeding system, archaeological dental evidence reveals that childhood may have evolved much later than thought and not concurrent with other life-history traits such as brain size. Lastly, I formulate a novel hypothesis about the origins of childhood.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor's Thesis) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Dugdale, H.L. and Young, E.A. |
| Degree programme: | Biology |
| Thesis type: | Bachelor's Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Date Deposited: | 09 Jul 2021 12:05 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Jul 2021 12:05 |
| URI: | https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/24931 |
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