Paleofantasy Quotes

“When it comes to childhood, therefore, it was reasonable to suggest that a prolonged period before independence was required once humans began to perform difficult tasks, like hunting or making pottery and baskets. Children could spend their time practicing these skills, which would better prepare them for success as adults in a hunter-gatherer society. In effect, this idea would mean that children are schooling themselves, and were doing so long before formal education was invented.”
― Marlene Zuk, Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live

“Even in nonindustrialized societies, girls do not start having children the moment they reach menarche; the average age worldwide for a first baby is nineteen, according to a 2008 article in Science.”
― Marlene Zuk, Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live

“Other primates get on with their own reproduction relatively soon after weaning, with gorillas having their first baby just seven or so years later.”
― Marlene Zuk, Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live

“Suppose you have a village of 100 people. If half of them die at age five, perhaps from such childhood ailments, twenty die at age sixty, and the remaining thirty die at seventy-five, the average life span in the society is thirty-seven, but not a single person actually reached the age of thirty hale and hearty and then suddenly began to senesce.”
― Marlene Zuk, Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live

“If you held your head the right way and squinted, we could practically pass for marmosets. Well, the lack of fur and the use of indoor plumbing would give us away, but you get the point. Monogamy is rare among animals, as we have seen, but hardly unheard of.”
― Marlene Zuk, Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live