ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2016
The transition to foraging for dense and predictable resources and its impact on the evolution of modern humans.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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23 citing papers in PubMed.
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- Phylogenetic evidence reveals early Kra-Dai divergence and dispersal in the late Holocene.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Evidence for Earlier Stone Age 'coastal use': The site of Dungo IV, Benguela Province, Angola.PloS one · 2023Review
- Organization of residential space, site function variability, and seasonality of activities among MIS 5 Iberian Neandertals.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Environmental influences on human innovation and behavioural diversity in southern Africa 92-80 thousand years ago.Nature ecology & evolution · 2022Article
- Evolutionary stability, landscape heterogeneity, and human land-usage shape population genetic connectivity in the Cape Floristic Region biodiversity hotspot.Evolutionary applications · 2021Article
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- A Late Holocene community burial area: Evidence of diverse mortuary practices in the Western Cape, South Africa.PloS one · 2020Article
- Specialized rainforest hunting by Homo sapiens ~45,000 years ago.Nature communications · 2019Article
- Microliths in the South Asian rainforest ~45-4 ka: New insights from Fa-Hien Lena Cave, Sri Lanka.PloS one · 2019Article
- Nicotinamide as Independent Variable for Intelligence, Fertility, and Health: Origin of Human Creative Explosions?International journal of tryptophan research : IJTR · 2019Review
- Quantifying spatial variability in shell midden formation in the Farasan Islands, Saudi Arabia.PloS one · 2019Article
- Macroecological factors shape local-scale spatial patterns in agriculturalist settlements.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2017Article
- Meat and Nicotinamide: A Causal Role in Human Evolution, History, and Demographics.International journal of tryptophan research : IJTR · 2017Review
- Evolutionary Shaping of Adult Hippocampal Neurogenesis in Mammals-Cognitive Gain or Developmental Priming of Personality Traits?Frontiers in neuroscience · 2017Article
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Abstract
Scientists have identified a series of milestones in the evolution of the human food quest that are anticipated to have had far-reaching impacts on biological, behavioural and cultural evolution: the inclusion of substantial portions of meat, the broad spectrum revolution and the transition to food production. The foraging shift to dense and predictable resources is another key milestone that had consequential impacts on the later part of human evolution. The theory of economic defendability predicts that this shift had an important consequence-elevated levels of intergroup territoriality and conflict. In this paper, this theory is integrated with a well-established general theory of hunter-gatherer adaptations and is used to make predictions for the sequence of appearance of several evolved traits of modern humans. The distribution of dense and predictable resources in Africa is reviewed and found to occur only in aquatic contexts (coasts, rivers and lakes). The palaeoanthropological empirical record contains recurrent evidence for a shift to the exploitation of dense and predictable resources by 110 000 years ago, and the first known occurrence is in a marine coastal context in South Africa. Some theory predicts that this elevated conflict would have provided the conditions for selection for the hyperprosocial behaviours unique to modern humans.This article is part of the themed issue 'Major transitions in human evolution'.
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