article
Fitness and fertility among the Kalahari !Kung
American journal of physical anthropology • 77 (3) • Published In 1988 • Pages: 303-319
By: Pennington, Renee, Harpending, Henry.
Abstract
In this paper, Pennington and Harpending examine the relationship among environmental conditions, parental care, and childhood mortality among the !Kung. Studies have shown that length of parental care enhances survival of offspring in the first few years of life. However this investment of parental care means delaying reproduction of new offspring. Therefore there is a trade-off between parents having fewer children in whom they invest optimum care to insure survival to reproductive age and those having many children to make up for care-independent mortality. The !Kung appear to defy the model. 'Women who produced larger families…reared more surviving offspring than women who produced smaller families' (page 315). The authors suggest that the parental role of men was a factor favorably affecting childhood survival.
- HRAF PubDate
- 2005
- Region
- Africa
- Sub Region
- Southern Africa
- Document Type
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator Type
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- Analyst
- Ian Skoggard ; 2003
- Field Date
- 1967-1968
- Coverage Date
- 1967-1968
- Coverage Place
- Ghanzi and Ngamiland Districts, Botswana
- Notes
- Renee Pennington and Henry Harpending
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 317-319)
- According to the authors the Ngamiland !Kung includes the Nyae Nyae !Kung in Namibia.
- LCCN
- 20014728
- LCSH
- San (African people)