Evolutionary Anthropology最新文献

Body mass is a critical variable in many hominin evolutionary studies, with implications for reconstructing relative brain size, diet, locomotion, subsistence strategy, and social organization. We review methods that have been proposed for estimating body mass from true and trace fossils, consider their applicability in different contexts, and the appropriateness of different modern reference samples. Recently developed techniques based on a wider range of modern populations hold promise for providing more accurate estimates in earlier hominins, although uncertainties remain, particularly in non-Homo taxa. When these methods are applied to almost 300 Late Miocene through Late Pleistocene specimens, the resulting body mass estimates fall within a 25–60 kg range for early non-Homo taxa, increase in early Homo to about 50–90 kg, then remain constant until the Terminal Pleistocene, when they decline.

The evolution of monogamy has been a central question in biological anthropology. An important avenue of research has been comparisons across “socially monogamous” mammals, but such comparisons are inappropriate for understanding human behavior because humans are not “pair living” and are only sometimes “monogamous.” It is the “pair bond” between reproductive partners that is characteristic of humans and has been considered unique to our lineage. I argue that pair bonds have been overlooked in one of our closest living relatives, chimpanzees. These pair bonds are not between mates but between male “friends” who exhibit enduring and emotional social bonds. The presence of such bonds in male–male chimpanzees raises the possibility that pair bonds emerged earlier in our evolutionary history. I suggest pair bonds first arose as “friendships” and only later, in the human lineage, were present between mates. The mechanisms for these bonds were co-opted for male-female bonds in humans.

We hope to raise awareness of mental health and well-being among primatologists. With this aim in mind, we organized a workshop on mental health as part of the main program of the Winter meeting of the Primate Society of Great Britain in December 2021. The workshop was very well received. Here, we review the main issues raised in the workshop, and supplement them with our own observations, reflections, and reading. The information we gathered during the workshop reveals clear hazards to mental health and suggests that we must collectively acknowledge and better manage both the hazards themselves and our ability to cope with them if we are to avert disaster. We call on institutions and learned societies to lead in seeking solutions for the benefit of primatologists and primatology.

Vegetal matter undergoing digestion in herbivores' stomachs and intestines, digesta, can be an important source of dietary carbohydrates for human foragers. Digesta significantly increases large herbivores' total caloric yield and broadens their nutritional profile to include three key macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrates) in amounts sufficient to sustain small foraging groups for multiple days without supplementation. Ethnographic reports of routine digesta consumption are limited to high latitudes, but the practice may have had a wider distribution prehistorically. Including this underappreciated resource in our foraging hypotheses and models can substantively change their predictions. Assessing the explanatory power of kilocalorie-centered models relative to ones that attend to humans' other nutritional requirements can help us better address major questions in evolutionary anthropology. This paper explores the foraging implications of digesta in two contexts—sex-divided subsistence labor and archaeologically observed increases in plant use and sedentism—using estimates of available protein and carbohydrates in the native tissues and digesta, respectively, of a large ruminant herbivore (Bison bison).

In the past decades, it has been increasingly recognized that some areas of science, such as anthropology, have been plagued by racist, Western-centric, and/or sexist biases. Unfortunately, an acculturation process to racism and sexism has been occurring for generations leading to systemic inequities that will take a long time to disappear. Here, we highlight the existence of current examples of racism, Western-centrism and sexism within: (1) the most popular anatomical atlases used in biological, anthropological and medical education; (2) prominent natural history museums and World Heritage Sites; (3) biological and anthropological scientific research publications; and (4) popular culture and influential children's books and educational materials concerning human biology and evolution.