Hunting and gathering, both as it’s done among the Hadza today and as we imagine it was done hundreds of thousands of years ago, is a division of labor. Some members of the group go out hunting, while others do the more reliable work of foraging for plants. “You bring those together at the end of the day, and you share, and everyone has enough to eat,” Pontzer said. Groups who were better at sharing were more likely to survive, and natural selection started favoring not just traits that enhance physical endurance, like longer leg bones, but also traits that encourage within-group cooperation.
...more
