Christen Mangum

ANTH 1020-006
Maughn
November 30, 2015
Word Count: 609
The Human Family:
A Look Into How Humans Evolved to Form Families Through Sharing
This Thanksgiving, as you were surrounded by parents, cousins, and odd aunts who
passed down the sweet potatoes, the question of how humans evolved to hold on to familial
relations after adulthood and share food probably did not enter the mind. However, this very trait
for primates, the family and sharing food, is a behavioral adaptation that was integral to our
survival as a species.
Lancaster and Whitten in their article Family Matters claim that primates evolutionary
success was not due to our ability to be aggressive and violent, a theory that had been widely
accepted previously. Lancaster and Whitten suggest that it was rather our ability to share and
divide labor. As they claim, "This change reorganized the relationships between the sexes and
between adults and young. Ultimately it led to that unique institution: the human family." (10)
Primates are naturally individual foragers and the concept of saving and sharing did not
come naturally to them. One of the reasons that it is not natural is that before we fully evolved to
become bipedal, it was very difficult to carry and store items, such as food, for long distances.
However, once we discovered the need to carry food, Lancaster and Whitten claim, that was the
primary reason we adapted to be bipedal, not to fight or hunt. However, then the questions would
be, why would they need to carry food? For their offspring.
These primates discovered that more of their offspring would survive better if they
themselves fed them after they outgrew clinging to the mother rather than letting them forage on
their own. Previously, as soon as the infant lost the ability to cling to the mother, they lost their
primary food source and were left to find their own source of food. If the offspring was not able
to learn how to forage for themselves soon, they would die. Because of this realization, the role
of the father-husband was created. The male, who was not burdened by an infant restricting
movement and taking energy, would forage and hunt for his female and offspring, increasing the
survivability of the offspring. This is also the basis, they claim, of why hunter-gatherer coalitions

were mostly monogamous as a male would have a harder time caring for two females and his
offspring rather than just one. It was also more efficient to stay with a single female rather than
searching for a new one as soon as the offspring was self-sufficient.
Feeding offspring and the mothers was the first step, and later primates begin to share
with those that were their brothers and uncles. Researchers Geary and Flinn in their article state,
Social Cooperation and coalition formation are readily understood as evolved strategies that
allow individuals greater access to and control of essential resources than they could achieve
alone. (16)
As these primates discovered more and more how beneficial it was to work together, they
gradually developed a system of reciprocity, where if one individual performed a favor for
another, they would eventually have a favor for them. The authors of "Reciprocity in Primates"
put it best, [T]he principle of reciprocal altruism, according to which individuals exchange
favors in such a way that the short-term cost of individual As helping individual B now is offset
by the long-term benefit of As receiving help from B in the future. (Brosnan et al., 3)
Primates further developed, evolved, and adapted, adding more complex structures to this
system of reciprocity. After a few million years or so since this whole process began, we, Homo
Sapiens, are now sitting around the dinner table passing peas and carrots to that odd aunt at
dinner.

References:
Brosnan, Sarah F., Frans B. M. de Waal, and Proctor Darby. Reciprocity In Primates. n.p.: The
MIT Press, 2014. University Press Scholarship Online. 3-31. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
Geary, DC, and MV Flinn. "Evolution Of Human Parental Behavior And The Human Family."

Parenting: Science & Practice 1.1/2 (2001): 5-61 57p. CINAHL Complete. Web. 25 Nov.
2015.
Lancaster, Jane B., and Phillip Whitten. "Family Matters." Sciences 20.1 (1980): 10-15.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Nov. 2015.