Some of the most studied hunter-gatherer groups are in Africa, the continent from where all humans originally migrated. This makes them arguably the most reliable source of data for evolutionary researchers. They include the !Kung, bushmen and bushwomen living in the Kalahari desert in southern Africa, the Hadza who live in the Lake Eyasi region of northern Tanzania, and the Efé in the Ituri Rainforest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Anthropologist Sarah Hrdy notes that all three of these societies have people who play parental roles to other people’s children—known as “alloparents.”
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