title: Subsistence-patterns, gender roles, effective temperature, and the evolutionary timing of a post reproductive life span.
abstract: Evolutionary anthropologists explain menopause and the start of a post reproductive lifespan (PRLS), as beneficiary for older women who can now help contribute to their children/grandchildren's wellbeing. This paper presents a new model with the aim to elucidate when, where, and for whom, such benefits may have arisen. In foraging societies, women contribute nutrients to their social groups/family units to a greater degree as overall effective temperatures (ETs) rise. Where the ET is favorable for women's contributions (ETs between 15 and 20), selection does lengthen the PRLS of women because women contribute sufficiently to enhance their own inclusive fitness. Paleo-environment records suggest that the climate necessary to encourage an increase PRLS occurred shortly after the younger dryad in emerging subtropical settings. Subsistence patterns and gender roles may have played a role in the evolution of PRLS in human females.
authors.affiliation: University of California, Riverside, Department of Anthropology, 1334 Watkins Hall, Riverside, CA 92521-0418, United States. Electronic address: gloff001@ucr.edu.
authors.forename: German
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Loffler
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000235:genetics; D000383:Agriculture; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001831:Body Temperature / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008136:Longevity / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D008593:Menopause / Q000235:genetics*; D012098:Reproduction / Q000502:physiology*; D012641:Selection, Genetic / Q000235:genetics; D012737:Sex Factors