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Juvenile Subsistence Effort, Activity Levels, and Growth Patterns

Middle Childhood among Pumé Foragers

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Abstract

Attention has been given to cross-cultural differences in adolescent growth, but far less is known about developmental variability during juvenility (ages 3–10). Previous research among the Pumé, a group of South American foragers, found that girls achieve a greater proportion of their adult stature during juvenility compared with normative growth expectations. To explain rapid juvenile growth, in this paper we consider girls’ activity levels and energy expended in subsistence effort. Results show that Pumé girls spend far less time in subsistence tasks in proportion to their body size compared with adults, and they have lower physical activity levels compared with many juveniles cross-culturally. Low activity levels help to explain where the extra energy comes from to support rapid growth in a challenging environment. We suggest that activity levels are important to account for the variation of resource and labor transfers in mediating energy availability.

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Notes

  1. One means to achieve early maturity is for an individual to stop growing at a younger age, at a smaller body size (Migliano et al. 2007; Walker and Hamilton 2008). Early maturity has been associated with a change in extrinsic juvenile mortality in a number of animal species—either from disease, predation, culling, or fishing pressure (Jones et al. 2008; Olsen et al. 2004). The emphasis of these studies is on early reproductive age, not specifically juvenile growth.

  2. Based on age, sex, height, and weight-specific resting daily BMR adjusted for activity level in Maya girls. Activity levels are averaged from year-long time-allocation data (Kramer 2005b).

  3. Accounting for age, the dummy variable is significant when added to the model (p < 0.0001). Because of the strong age effect the data have a linear distribution, residuals are normally distributed, and no heteroskedasticity is evident. The model is powered at 99.9% at an alpha level of 0.05 and an n of 44. The model is sufficiently powered to detect the effect of group (Pumé/Maya) on work effort. There is a 0.1% chance of incorrectly accepting group affiliation as a significant predictor when added to the model.

  4. !Kung females are similar in adult stature to the Pumé (150 cm for the !Kung, compared with 151.5 cm for the Pumé) but smaller in body mass (41 kg, compared with 50.5 kg; Jenike 2001:223).

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Acknowledgments

Foremost we thank the people of Doro Aná, Yagurí, and Charakotó for their tireless hours of interviews and measurements. We are grateful to Drs. Roberto Lizarralde (Universidad Central de Venezuela), Ted Gragson (University of Georgia, Athens), and Haydée Seijas (Universidad Central de Venezuela) for their previous census research among the Pumé, which is invaluable in establishing the Pumé age estimates. Much appreciation to Dr. Daisy Barreto (Universidad Central de Venezuela) and Kleismer Correa (Salud Indígena) for assisting with Venezuelan research logistics. We thank Oskar Burger and Amanda Veile for their assistance in the data collection. The 2005–2007 research was funded by the National Science Foundation (0349963) and the Milton Foundation. The 1992–1993 Pumé research was funded by the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation and an NSF dissertation improvement grant awarded to Russell Greaves and Lewis R. Binford (DBS-9123875).

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  1. Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

    Karen L. Kramer

  2. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

    Russell D. Greaves

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  1. Karen L. Kramer
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  2. Russell D. Greaves
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Correspondence to Karen L. Kramer.

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Kramer, K.L., Greaves, R.D. Juvenile Subsistence Effort, Activity Levels, and Growth Patterns. Hum Nat 22, 303–326 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-011-9122-8

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