other Nature
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`Mothers, II’._1]FCII1tS, and
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`Natum] Selection
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`Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
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`0\1ERLANDPARH_ KANSAS 56230
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`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 1
`
`
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 1
`
`

`
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`Copyright © [999 by Sarah Blaffer I-lrdy
`
`All rights reserved
`under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
`Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., NewYorl<,
`and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited,Toront0.
`
`Pantheon Books and Colophon are registered trademarks oFRandon1 House, Inc.
`
`l,il)rary oi‘ C0ng1'ess Cataloging-in-Pulilicaiion Data
`
`Hrcly, Sarah Blaffer, 1 94.6—
`Mother nature :' a history of mothers, infants, and natural
`selection / Sarah Blafler Hrdy.
`p.
`cm.
`
`includes biinliograpliical references (p.
`ISBN o—679-4.4.265-u
`
`) and index.
`
`1. N10Ll1e1'l'l0OCl-—PS}'C}10l.0giCal aspects.
`1. Mother and child.
`3. Natural selection.
`4.. Parental behavior in animals.
`5. Working
`mothers.
`I. Title
`
`HQ7£9-H734
`306.3']4.'3——v(.JlC2I
`
`I999
`9943092
`
`Random I-louseW'eb Address: www.rand0Inl1ouse.Com
`
`Book design by Fearn Cutler de Vicq
`
`Printed in the United States ofArne1'ica
`FIRST EDITION
`
`146897531
`
`
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Pag: 2
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 2
`
`

`
`
`
`Contents
`
`Preface
`
`PART ONE
`
`Look to the Animals
`
`1
`
`Motherhood as a Minefield
`
`A NeWVie\v of Mothers
`
`Underlying Mysteries of Development
`
`Unimaginable Variation
`The Variable Environments of Evolutionary Relevance
`
`PART TVVO
`
`Mothers and Allornothers
`
`119
`
`The Milky Way
`
`From Here to Maternity
`
`Family Planning Primate-Style
`Three Men and a Baby '
`
`The Optimal Number of Fathers
`Who Cared?
`
`Unnatural Mothers
`
`Daughters or Sons? It All Depends
`OldTradeofFs, New Contexts
`
`U‘:-I-‘~U~é
`
`O\.DO0‘--.1CB
`
`I2
`
`:4
`
`PART THREE
`
`-
`
`An lnEant’s-Eye View 381
`
`I5
`
`Born to Attach
`
`17
`18
`
`Meeting the Eyes of Love
`“Secure f1'ornVVhat?” or “Secure fromVVhom?”
`
`Empowering the Embryo
`
`xi
`
`27
`
`55
`
`79
`
`[21
`
`14.6
`175
`
`205
`
`335‘
`266
`
`238
`
`318
`351
`
`383
`394
`
`4.08
`4-19
`
`ix
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 3
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`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 3
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`

`
`CONTENTS
`
`Wl1y Be Adorable?
`How to Be “An Infanfl/Vo1'th Rearing”
`A Matter of Fat
`
`OF Human Bondage
`Alternate Paths of Development
`Devising Better Lullabies
`
`Notes
`
`Acknowledgments
`Bibliography
`Index
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 4
`
`

`
`
`
`
`I-iA.MII.Y PLANNIHNG PRIr\iA‘1‘E-STYLE
`197
`
`Back—Load Model
`
`Like a modern working mother agonizing over when to go back to work, or
`whether or not to leave her baby at the nearby daycare center, whose staff she
`does not quite trust, mothers have always found themselves calculating
`whether it's safe to leave baby with an allomother. Can she return to camp in
`time to suckle it? How hungry or dehydrated will it be? If she takes the child
`with her foraging, will she be able to carry back enough food to make the
`arduous trek worthwhile? Most such choices in the Pleistocene, however,
`
`were even harsher. The baby of a mother who miscalculated the time to wean
`probably died.
`-
`_
`Some environments were safer than others. Anthropologist Nick Blurton—
`Jones and others have called attention to the harshness of the climate in a
`desert locale like the Kalahari, the ease with which a wandering child might
`become lost in the vast, featureless Hatlands; the sheer distances involved.‘A
`
`gathering woman could not but take her infant with her. Yet she also paid
`dearly when she did.
`V/omen frequently had to travel to distant groves of mongongo trees to
`collect protein—rich nuts that are a staple food in the !Kung diet. The trip
`could be daunting, a dehydrating six miles each way. Given small’ group sizes,
`even if another woman in her band was lactating, this woman might not be
`willing to volunteer as a wet nurse, or might have to leave camp herself.
`The availability of palatable, alternative foods had to be factored in to age
`of weaning. Infants born into worlds without safe water or soft, easily
`digestible foods‘ for weaning had to wait. Instead of Gerber's baby food,
`babies made do on milk and insect grubs or fibrous vegetables masticated in
`their mother's mouth, or, like lucky Ache weanlings, sucked on armadillo fat.
`Fora foraging mother to remain in close enough proximity to nurse could
`require carrying babies—plus supplies and gathered provender~——back-
`breaking distances. Birth of another baby too soon could prove disastrous.
`Hence Blurton Jones proposed that, in fact, far from limiting population
`a growth, endocrinological feedback loops that spaced babies at long intervals
`actually worked to ensure that mothers replaced themselves, by optirriizing
`the survival «of such infants as they did produce. Babies born at shorter inter-
`vals might destabilize a mother’s precarious juggling, contributing to her
`demise and/or their own. VVhen tested against data for the lKung, the "back-
`load hypothesis” held fairly well.43
`As important as the extensive research on the !Kung has been for fleshing
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page
`
`l
`
`
`
`inging the doorbells of
`thropologists observed
`ruch exercise the moth-
`
`: their work, and then
`
`incredibly complicated
`feedback loops involv-
`:hnically referred to as
`reason breast—feeding
`115 of birth control is
`
`esponsive to maternal
`
`ad over a minimum of
`
`iteen months.“ But it
`
`ier is sedentary, less if
`)1” if she is jogging ten
`0 grueling workouts,
`ice. Exercise notwith-
`
`aal independence the
`y sucks. But frequency
`ule, how far she has to
`or leaves him behind.
`
`nody goes by how fre-
`:chedule.)When there
`safe place apart from
`rust of necessity occur
`may begin menstruat-
`WVBVGI‘, women nutri~
`
`)m breast-feeding her
`
`zlepletion makes them
`rest of Zaire confided
`
`here in Africa, among
`zeking wives for sons
`ilump and who reach
`Monique Borgerhoff
`
`
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 5
`
`

`
`J '1‘ ii ll ii :5
`
`I
`
`1}
`
`J. L L C :‘-.1 0'1" H E R. S
`
`Fig. 8.3 “Women who have one birth after another like an animal have a permanent backache!”
`warns a !Ku.ng proverb. This woman in the last months of pregnancy returns-‘to camp with her
`four-year—old son riding on her shoulders. Her leather sling, or kaross, permits her to carry nuts
`or gathered food weighing twenty-five pounds or more, together with another five pounds of
`personal possessions and water for the trip in an ostrich egg canteen, and her child, who weighs
`almost thirty pounds. A child this age would already have been carried by his mother some 4.,9oo
`miles. (Richard 3. Lee/Anthn;-—P11ota)
`
`out our understanding of Pleistocene lifestyles, it is important to remember
`that the Kalahari was just one of many possible permutations for hunter-
`gatherers. Far to the north of Botswana, in the 1'ock—strewn hillsides of Tanza-
`nia, Hadza foragers collect ali the tubers and baobab pods they need without
`having to travel more than two miles from camp. Mothers are rarely gone
`longer than an hour (average travel time is twenty—f1ve minutes). Infants are
`left behind at a much younger age (closer to age two than four, as is charac-
`teristic among the !_Kung), often with subadult caretakers. Because they have
`the option to leave babies with an allomother, I-Iadza mothers can produce
`infants after shorter intervals than !Kung mothers without compromising
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 6
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`

`
`
`
`Witli the adoption of slings, like the leather kaross !Kung women still use,
`mothers could transport both infants and quantities of gathered food. The
`technology of such carryalls is so unassuming that it is all too easy to overlook
`the significance of this early technological revolution. It was the beginnjnge
`perhaps as early as 5o,ooo years ago—of an economically significant division
`of labor based on sharing.
`A rudimentary chiinpanzee-style division of labor whereby males ob;
`tained meat from hunting While females specialized in vegetable foods and
`small prey items has characterized hominoids for more than five million
`years. But with mothers’ capacity to carry provender in addition to babies, they
`would have had stores of food to share. The new division of labor meant that
`
`I99
`FAIVIILY PLANNENG’PRIMATE~STYLE
`
`
`infant survival. As a consequence, the Hadza population is growing by 1 pen
`cent a year rather than holding steady. Similarly, abundant game in the South
`American forests, where Aché foragers live, means more protein and fat for
`women, birth intervals even shorter than among the Hadza, and higher popu-
`lation growth rates. The “sleeper” here, the nonobvious but very important
`determiner of population’ regulation,
`is the little infant, whose suckling
`transforms ecological differences into demographic ones.”
`
`Division of Labor
`
`h another five pounds of
`
`men could go hunting confident in the knowledge that if they failed, women
`would have sufficient gathered food back at camp to tide everyone over.
`Anthropologist Jane Lancaster notes that new technologies for carrying
`babies and also for obtaining food more efficiently (spears and sharpened dig~
`ging sticks) meant that mothers who were better fed could give birth after
`shorter intervals. Improved efficiency in food—getting contributed to shorter
`birth intervals, and to the expanding human populations that were edging
`their way out of Africa.“
`
`The Real Neolithic Revolutions
`
`As the modern world closed in, bringing outsiders to once remote locales to
`claim land once freely used by peoples like the iKung, the last vestiges of
`Pleistocene lifestyles came to a standstill. Former hunters and gatherers
`spent more and more time in one place. Many kept livestock, or a garden, or
`relied on handouts, or otherwise traded the freedom (and the uncertainty) of
`a nomadic life for greater security. In the case of the lKung, former foragers
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 7
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`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 7
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`

`
`MOTHERS AND ALLOMOTI-IERS
`
`Fig. 8.4 Leather slings, nets, or woven basl-tem made it possible for mothers to travel long dis-
`tances carrying several offspring, or food plus offspring. These innovations left no trace in the
`Fossil record. The balancing baskets like the.se used by this Japanese mother are still widely
`CITipl0}’8d. (C-DUf[£J]t_?fAfl(5f1lfCCGf£l'i)")
`
`indentured themselves to Herrero pastoralists in exchange for milk. Instead
`of making long treks to find food, carryingdependent children with them,
`women stayed close to home sites.
`intervals between births grow
`VVhenever I people cease wandering,
`shorter. For ethnographer Richard Lee, observing the transformation of the
`!Kung San was like fasbforwarding through the Neolithic transformation of
`early humans.
`“This sudden embarrassment of riches in terms of births,” he noted, “is
`already imposing hardships on !Kung mothers and children alike, a degree of
`
`-
`
`_
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024
`
`3
`
`E
`
`g
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`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 8
`
`

`
`
`
`FAMILY PLANNING PRlr\1ATE—STYLE
`
`ZOI
`
`stress that reveals the existence of a third system interlocked with production
`and reproduction-—a system I will call the emotional economy of the San.”
`The Neolithic revolution did not so much mean a radical overhaul in an eco-
`nomic sense; what was radically different was the abrupt arrival of the next
`infant.
`No one had to bear the brunt of these changes more acutely than the
`infants themselves. For a child in a village weaned after just a year and a half,
`“The effects are striking,” wrote Lee.
`
`The most miserable kids I have seen among the [Kong are some of the
`1 . 5- to 2—year—old youngsters with younger siblings on the way. Their
`misery begins at weaning and continues to the birth of the sibling 6 to 8
`months later and beyond. The mother, for her part, has not only a
`demanding newborn to care for but the constant intrusions of an
`angry, sullen 2-year-old. A grandmother or aunt may do her best to
`feed and cheer up the older child and to give the overworked mother
`some relief, but it is clear to the observer that something is out of
`kilter.
`
`The scene contrasted markedly with Lee’s own earlier descriptions of loving,
`infinitely tolerant lKung mothers attending deftly to the cooing and crying of
`each infant born. Gradual transitions from foraging to settled living—what
`some refer to as the Neolithic revolution—-were experienced by the infants
`as a series of neonatal crises.“
`
`The prelude to the Neolithic was long and slow, dating back a million years or
`more. People gradually became already more efficient at extracting food,
`using sticks to dig tubers, traps or nets to catch fish and game. Furthermore,
`as I will discuss in chapter 1 1, a new type of allomother became available,
`helping to provision offspring and making it possible for mothers to wean
`children sooner and space births more closely. Some early humans, especially
`those living in rich riparian or lakeside habitats, would not have needed to
`forage quite so widely. As new food sources became available, and as people
`spent more time in fewer places, birth intervals shortened and populations
`began to grow.
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 9
`
`' mothers to travel long dis~
`ovations left no trace in the
`
`ese mother are still widely
`
`range for milk. Instead
`it children with them,
`
`361:1-VBEIL births grow
`transformation of the
`
`‘chic transformation of
`
`Fbirths,” he noted, “is
`
`dren alike, 2. degree of
`
`
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 9
`
`

`
`202
`
`MOTHERS AND ALLOMOTI-{ERS
`
`these effects were greatly
`Later, with the introduction of agriculture,
`magnified. By 1 1,500 years ago in central China, by 10,000 years ago in the
`Middle East, Mexico, and parts of highland South America, and closer to
`years ago among such remnant foragers as the Ache and the !Kung, lifestyles
`changed completely. Foragers lingered in a few locales, literally putting down
`roots, depending more and more on cultivated strains of wild rice, emmer,
`einkorn, oats, barley, wheat, millet, or, in the New V/Vorld, squash and
`maize.” V/Vornan the forager adjusted to the more sedentary routine of
`woman the grinder. The availability of ground grain, and fired pottery to
`cook it in, meant gruel was available year-round as a weaning food, so that
`infants could be weaned as early as around six months and still survive.“
`Population after population, independently, each according to its own
`schedule, traded the freedom of a nomadic lifestyle for short—term security. 54’
`The long-term costs could be measured in the classic combination of higher
`birth rates coupled with higher rates of infant mortality in the face of recur-
`rent famines, epidemics, and war.
`For humans, the long birth intervals typical of chimpanzees and other apes
`grew shorter.” Human infants were, if anything, more costly than those of-'
`other apes, yet these slow—maturing, bigubrained “ape”babies were arriving as
`often as every two years or less. Large»bodied ape babies were being born at
`nionkeyalike intervals. In areas where food was plentiful, selection actually
`once again favored multiple births. In parts of the world where famincs were
`rare, the incidence of twinning increased.
`Scientists at the University of Turku in Finland have shown that women
`living on islands, with plentiful and constant supplies of fish, had higher rates
`of twinning than women on the mainland. Island mothers who gave birth to
`twins had a higher lifetime reproductive success, but the same was not true
`on the mainland, perhaps because crop failures and recurrent famines meant
`that both twins and the mothers who bore them were more likely to die.“
`Indeed, in parts of the world where food has traditionally been less plentiful,
`the only twins ever born are identical twins. Such twins represent an accident
`of early cell division rather than an inherited tendency toward multiple ovu-
`lations.
`
`Replacing Singleton Births with Clutches
`Long birth intervals were a staple feature of the coevolution between ape
`mothers and their infants. However, over tens or even hundreds of thousands
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 10
`
`

`
`
`
`:se effects were greatly
`1 0,000 years ago in the
`ierica, and closer to
`and the lKung, lifestyles
`s, literally putting down
`ns of wild rice, emmer,
`
`few V/Vorld, squash and
`e sedentary routine of
`n, and fired pottery to
`a weaning food, so that
`
`1 according to its own
`or short—l:erm security.“
`: combination of higher
`lity in the face of recur-
`
`ipanzees and other apes
`are costly than those of
`’ babies were arriving as
`bies were being born at
`tiful, selection actually
`rld where famines were
`
`ave shown that women
`
`of fish, had higher rates
`hers who gave birth to
`the same was not true
`
`:current faniines meant
`
`re more likely to die.56
`ally been less plentiful,
`[3 represent an accident
`y toward multiple ovu-
`
`zvolution between ape
`hundreds of thousands
`
`FAMILY PLANNING PRIMATE-STYLE
`
`203
`
`
`
`Fig. 8. 5 ArcheologistTheya Molleson has found bone wear in the big toes, vertebrae, and knees
`of j,ooo-year-old skeletons from Abu Hureyra in northern Syria that indicate women spent long
`hours on their knees grinding doinesfic cereals against a stone base, much as this Central African
`Bemba mother is doing.Wl1i1e a mother is occupied by this daily grind, her baby might be held by
`an allomother, cradled nearby, or wrapped on to her mother's back using a sling arrangement
`like this one. (Photo @vAu:1'r-azv Richardgzfrican Imriiutej
`
`of years, hominid mothers were beginning to produce infants after shorter
`intervals. Like the island-living Finns, some mothers were even reproduc-
`tively favored for producing two at a time. Increasingly, periods of heavy
`investment in successive infants overlapped, creating the functional equiva-
`lent of litters (or the asynchronous hatching of broods found in some birds).
`At some point in human evolution, ape mothers with reproductive physi~
`ologies and temperaments adapted to rearing singleton young found them-
`selves simultaneously nin-turing several young of different ages. Multiple
`dependents became the “facts on the ground" that mothers had to adjust to
`and eventually even adapt to.
`V/Vhat humans, ruffed lemurs, and a handful of cooperatively breeding
`monkeys like tamarins have in common with many birds is that, unlike other
`apes, they live in families where mothers simultaneously care for multiple
`young. Closer birth spacing over the course of human evolution exacerbated
`dilemmas confronted by mothers who must then decide how to allocate
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 11
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 11
`
`

`
`MO'1'I~i]iRS AND ALLOBIOTHERS
`
`Fig. 8.6 A wicker basket on wheels permits this Japanese mother to take her nursing infant to
`work with her in Hooded rice fields, with important consequences for both birth spacing and
`infant survival. Baby carriages, strollers, and infant car—seats that strap into motorized vehicles
`are modern innovations tluatnfilike the Pleistocene slingeperinit mothers to bring infants with
`them as they forage, or just run errands. (Courtesy ofxauairakabi)
`
`resources among dependent young with competing needs. These pressures
`increased as the Neolithic brought about an unprecedented level of fertility,
`but at a potential cost to particular infants who may not have been just what
`(in terms of sex. or other attributes) or been born when the stork ordered.
`A mother’s genes would continue to be represented in the population or
`disappear, depending on her ability to assess which offspring would best
`translate her investment into long—term reproductive success, and on how
`much assistance she managed to elicit from fathers and alloparents. I turn
`now to the means by which mothers sought such help. First on the list: how
`to elicit help from males in caring for infants.
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 _
`
`Petitioner Ex. 1024 Page 12