By systematically examining age patterns in reported acquisition, proficiency, and expertise across a broad range of activities including food production, childcare, and other services, we provide the most complete skill development study of a traditional subsistence society to date. Previous...

The economics of hunting and gathering must have driven the biological evolution of human characteristics, since hunter-gatherer societies prevailed for the two million years of human history. These societies feature huge intergenerational resource flows, suggesting that these resource flows...

Post-reproductive longevity is a robust feature of human life and not only a recent phenomenon caused by improvements in sanitation, public health, and medical advances. We argue for an adaptive life span of 68-78 years for modern "Homo sapiens" based on our analysis of mortality profiles...

Data from three bargaining games-the Dictator Game, the Ultimatum Game, and the Third-Party Punishment Game-played in 15 societies are presented. The societies range from US undergraduates to Amazonian, Arctic, and African hunter-gatherers. Behaviour within the games varies markedly across...

Experimental behavioral scientists have found consistent deviations from the predictions of the canonical model of self-interest in over a hundred experiments from around the world. Prior research cannot determine whether this uniformity results from universal patterns of behavior, or from the...

This paper reports the results of the Ultimatum Game (UG), Dictator Game (DG) and Public Goods Game (PGG) played among the Tsimane, a group of forager-horticulturalists living in the Bolivian Amazon. Game results differ significantly from those commonly reported among modern, westernized...

The most efficient way to make scientific progress in biodemography is to encourage bi-directional exchange between ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ research. This will entail exchange along the continuum of research from microscopic intracellular processes to...

For many traditional, non-industrialized populations, intensive and prolonged breastfeeding buffers infant health against poverty, poor sanitation, and limited health care. Due to novel influences on local economies, values, and beliefs, the traditional and largely beneficial breastfeeding...