Women who have reproduced recently are less likely to have passed the menopause.
I guess that was exactly part of what I meant.
Other mammals don’t live for decades after the menopause like we do.
Interesting point!! Apparently women really live exceptionally long, while their menopause (and its timing) itself is not unusual at all, and the most prevalent hypothesis is “grandmothering”, which posits what its name suggests, and essentially is, for our purposes, yet another symptom of them (say, our genes, or figuratively thus ‘our children’) desperately wanting us to stick around to care for these slow-up-growing and nerve-and-everything-wrecking offspring. In that sense, indirect extra, tiny support of the idea ‘they want to lure into having sex anytime as a loyalty encouraging devise and preventing us from straying too far’ or something like that. I’m vary if it sounds too simple but it does all seem to make sense (?).
Maybe our longevity after the menopause also led to human men evolving to be strongly attracted to women with a more youthful appearance. Attraction to boobs was then a counter-adaptation to prevent men from putting all their effort into pursuing pre-pubescent children.
I think I’ve heard David Brin (on his blog somewhere?) make this same rough argument about “creating a clean separating signal between women and children in the minds of horny men” as well so +1 to Angela’s point! When I try to find it again right now, Google sends me here. Also, Dmitry mentions it too.
To Florian’s point, I think a huge shift in human evolution (separating us from chimps and Gorillas (but interestingly NOT so much from gibbons!)) happened that basically made two-parent child-raising happen more reliably.
“Sexual crypsis” (where it isn’t clear when sex will be procreative or not) often co-occurs with monogamy. Storks and ferrets and humans convergently evolved this pattern where the only way a highly invested male can be relatively sure of paternity is to constantly hover nearby and “mate guard” even during periods of time when the mate guarding is technically pointless because any side coupling couldn’t be viable.
Once “an incentive to mate guard constantly” exists, then second order genetically modulated behavioral shaping can make sure it actually like… uh… “helps at all” to improve child outcomes (providing more food and wisdom than, say, child abuse). In general, there is a lot of variety.
But for humans, these incentives towards monogamy get you into a framework where cultural transmission from two parents (and plausibly also grandparents (especially the maternal grandma!)) can help the kids become “supermonkeys” with tool making and language sharing cultural boosts, instead of just a single mom to simply copy the survival behavior of.
My understanding is that Neanderthal were less gregarious, with band sizes more like 3-8 people (and no money or barter?) rather than the sapiens 50-ish or more (with trade goods in their garbage from very far away, suggesting trade networks)… so I think sapiens had more than just this but I think both subspecies had instincts to cause the formation of nuclear-ish families with a shared language.
I guess that was exactly part of what I meant.
Interesting point!! Apparently women really live exceptionally long, while their menopause (and its timing) itself is not unusual at all, and the most prevalent hypothesis is “grandmothering”, which posits what its name suggests, and essentially is, for our purposes, yet another symptom of them (say, our genes, or figuratively thus ‘our children’) desperately wanting us to stick around to care for these slow-up-growing and nerve-and-everything-wrecking offspring. In that sense, indirect extra, tiny support of the idea ‘they want to lure into having sex anytime as a loyalty encouraging devise and preventing us from straying too far’ or something like that. I’m vary if it sounds too simple but it does all seem to make sense (?).
Maybe our longevity after the menopause also led to human men evolving to be strongly attracted to women with a more youthful appearance. Attraction to boobs was then a counter-adaptation to prevent men from putting all their effort into pursuing pre-pubescent children.
I think I’ve heard David Brin (on his blog somewhere?) make this same rough argument about “creating a clean separating signal between women and children in the minds of horny men” as well so +1 to Angela’s point! When I try to find it again right now, Google sends me here. Also, Dmitry mentions it too.
To Florian’s point, I think a huge shift in human evolution (separating us from chimps and Gorillas (but interestingly NOT so much from gibbons!)) happened that basically made two-parent child-raising happen more reliably.
“Sexual crypsis” (where it isn’t clear when sex will be procreative or not) often co-occurs with monogamy. Storks and ferrets and humans convergently evolved this pattern where the only way a highly invested male can be relatively sure of paternity is to constantly hover nearby and “mate guard” even during periods of time when the mate guarding is technically pointless because any side coupling couldn’t be viable.
Once “an incentive to mate guard constantly” exists, then second order genetically modulated behavioral shaping can make sure it actually like… uh… “helps at all” to improve child outcomes (providing more food and wisdom than, say, child abuse). In general, there is a lot of variety.
But for humans, these incentives towards monogamy get you into a framework where cultural transmission from two parents (and plausibly also grandparents (especially the maternal grandma!)) can help the kids become “supermonkeys” with tool making and language sharing cultural boosts, instead of just a single mom to simply copy the survival behavior of.
My understanding is that Neanderthal were less gregarious, with band sizes more like 3-8 people (and no money or barter?) rather than the sapiens 50-ish or more (with trade goods in their garbage from very far away, suggesting trade networks)… so I think sapiens had more than just this but I think both subspecies had instincts to cause the formation of nuclear-ish families with a shared language.