Re: Multi-age Broods. Ignorance or Apathy?
Paul Crowley (Paul@crowleyp.demon.co.uk)
Tue, 06 Aug 96 17:30:28 GMT
In article <32046496.7C29@dircon.co.uk>
jdwaters@dircon.co.uk "John Waters" writes:
> It is curious that this multi-age brood characteristic is not
> mentioned in any encyclopedia, or any reference work on primates.
No, it's not curious. It applies to only one primate and most
thinking about that one is inevitably distorted -- if not purblind.
I agree wholeheartedly with your identification of its importance.
The multi-age brood gave enormous advantages to the hominids that
first adopted it. If they found a new resource they could expand
at a fantastic rate (e.g. when they found a whole new continent
occupied by a techologically inferior people). This would have
given them such an enormous edge that they would have very rapidly
predominated. From then on, the rate of hominid evolution would
have escalated. A hominid population that was wiped out by disease,
famine or war would have been replaced in no time by its (superior?)
neighbours/conquerors.
But when was it? I'd say this capacity undoubtedly dated from the
time the hominid mother put down the child. (Does this latter event
have a name?) This was a break with a 65+ Myr primate behaviour
pattern and requires a lot of justification. The multi-age brood
would explain its success -- so long as we get a reasonable account
of the new resources (or new niche) that this step made exploitable.
This "putting-down-of-the-child" is conventionally dated to some
vague time when there was a descent from the trees and an expansion
of the brain. My own, very strong, opinion is that such a radical
change would only have been adopted by a small population and for
very special reasons. In other words, it was a speciation event.
So I date it to the hominid split from the apes, and firmly believe
that it was a requirement for bipedalism itself.
Thanks for the insight.
Paul.
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