Hawkes K, O'Connell J F, Jones N G, Alvarez H, Charnov E L
Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998 Feb 3;95(3):1336-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.95.3.1336.
Long postmenopausal lifespans distinguish humans from all other primates. This pattern may have evolved with mother-child food sharing, a practice that allowed aging females to enhance their daughters' fertility, thereby increasing selection against senescence. Combined with Charnov's dimensionless assembly rules for mammalian life histories, this hypothesis also accounts for our late maturity, small size at weaning, and high fertility. It has implications for past human habitat choice and social organization and for ideas about the importance of extended learning and paternal provisioning in human evolution.
绝经后期的长寿使人类有别于所有其他灵长类动物。这种模式可能是随着母婴食物共享而演变而来的，这种行为使衰老的雌性动物能够提高其女儿的生育能力，从而增加了对衰老的选择压力。结合查诺夫关于哺乳动物生活史的无量纲组装规则，这一假说也解释了人类成熟较晚、断奶时体型较小以及生育力高的现象。它对过去人类栖息地的选择和社会组织，以及对人类进化中强化学习和父亲供养的重要性的观点都有启示。
