Paleo Baby

Kristen Hawkes, PhD is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Utah, where she has taught in the Department of Anthropology for over four decades. She is also a collaborative scientist with the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and has authored over 120 scientific publications. She lectures internationally on our grandmothering life history and menopause as a uniquely human evolutionary advantage. On this podcast, Dr. Hawkes discusses the grandmother hypothesis and the environment that likely propelled human evolution. When savanna youngsters couldn’t yet manage to feed themselves, grandmothers were there to help forage,  supporting dependent grandchildren as their own fertility was ending. In the meantime, still-fertile females could invest less in each offspring and have more babies sooner. More robust older females could subsidize more descendants, favouring mutations that enhanced postmenopausal longevity. The research of Dr. Hawkes and her colleagues can help us better understand the critica