Abstract
Recent theoretical models suggest that the difference between human and nonhuman primate life-history patterns may be due to a reliance on complex foraging strategies requiring extensive learning. These models predict that children should reach adult levels of efficiency faster when foraging is cognitively simple. We test this prediction with data on Meriam fishing, spearfishing, and shellfishing efficiency. For fishing and spearfishing, which are cognitively difficult, we can find no significant amount of variability in return rates because of experiential factors correlated with age. However, for shellfish collecting, which is relatively easy to learn, there are strong age-related effects on efficiency. Children reach adult efficiency more quickly in fishing as compared to shellfish collecting, probably owing to the size and strength constraints of the latter.
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Rebecca Bliege Bird is an assistant professor and Douglas Bird is a research assistant professor at the University of Maine. Both received their doctorates in anthropology at the University of California, Davis. Rebecca’s current interests involve the role of intrasexual competition and signaling in the evolution of foraging strategies and the sexual division of labor. Douglas has long had an interest in children’s foraging and has published a series of papers on the archaeological consequences of adult and children’s foraging strategies in coastal environments.
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Bird, R.B., Bird, D.W. Constraints of knowing or constraints of growing?. Hum Nat 13, 239–267 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-002-1009-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-002-1009-2