Human Evolutionary Demography - cover image

Copyright

Oskar Burger; Ronald Lee; Rebecca Sear. Copyright of individual chapters are maintained by the chapter author(s).

Published On

2024-06-14

ISBN

Paperback978-1-80064-170-9
Hardback978-1-80064-171-6
PDF978-1-80064-172-3
HTML978-1-80064-682-7
EPUB978-1-80064-173-0

Language

  • English

Print Length

780 pages (xii+768)

Dimensions

Paperback156 x 40 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.57" x 9.21")
Hardback156 x 42 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.65" x 9.21")

Weight

Paperback1330g (46.91oz)
Hardback1557g (54.92oz)

Media

Illustrations49

OCLC Number

1440483536

LCCN

2021388887

THEMA

  • JB
  • JHM
  • JHMC
  • JHBD

BIC

  • J
  • JH
  • JHMC
  • JHBD

BISAC

  • SOC000000
  • SOC002000
  • SOC002010
  • SOC006000

LCC

  • QH355

Keywords

  • Human evolutionary demography
  • Interdisciplinary
  • Demographic patterns
  • Evolutionary processes
  • Social science
  • Evolutionary theory

Human Evolutionary Demography

Human evolutionary demography is an emerging field blending natural science with social science. This edited volume provides a much-needed, interdisciplinary introduction to the field and highlights cutting-edge research for interested readers and researchers in demography, the evolutionary behavioural sciences, biology, and related disciplines.

By bridging the boundaries between social and biological sciences, the volume stresses the importance of a unified understanding of both in order to grasp past and current demographic patterns. Demographic traits, and traits related to demographic outcomes, including fertility and mortality rates, marriage, parental care, menopause, and cooperative behavior are subject to evolutionary processes. Bringing an understanding of evolution into demography therefore incorporates valuable insights into this field; just as knowledge of demography is key to understanding evolutionary processes. By asking questions about old patterns from a new perspective, the volume—composed of contributions from established and early-career academics—demonstrates that a combination of social science research and evolutionary theory offers holistic understandings and approaches that benefit both fields.

Human Evolutionary Demography introduces an emerging field in an accessible style. It is suitable for graduate courses in demography, as well as upper-level undergraduates. Its range of research is sure to be of interest to academics working on demographic topics (anthropologists, sociologists, demographers), natural scientists working on evolutionary processes, and disciplines which cross-cut natural and social science, such as evolutionary psychology, human behavioral ecology, cultural evolution, and evolutionary medicine. As an accessible introduction, it should interest readers whether or not they are currently familiar with human evolutionary demography.

Reviews

[This volume] provides much fodder for discussion groups….[and] is a valuable reference for researchers interested in many aspects of human evolutionary demography. One recurring message is that the potential for politically or socially driven abuse, and the importance of many social and cultural variables in affecting human demography, are no excuses for not seeking advances in knowledge of when evolutionary principles are, or are not, important for understanding the demography of our own species.

Marco Festa-Bianchet, Département de biologie, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada

The Quarterly Review of Biology (0033-5770), vol. 100, 2025.

Additional Resources

[document]Table 1

Summary of periods, demographic indicators and case counts Scania (Sweden), St. Lawrence Valley (Quebec), Saguenay (Quebec), and Utah

[document]Table 2

Descriptive statistics (means and percentages), Maternal Grandmother, by region and birth intervals Scania, Quebec-St. Lawrence, Quebec-Saguenay Lac St. Jean and Utah, 1650-1900

[document]Table 3

Descriptive statistics (means and percentages), Paternal Grandmother, by region and birth intervals Scania, Quebec-St. Lawrence, Quebec-Saguenay Lac St. Jean and Utah, 1650-1900

[document]Tables 4 & 5

Table 4: Women's risk of next birth, by maternal grandmother status Scania, Quebec and Utah, 1650 - 1900, Abridged Table

Table 5: Women's risk of next birth, by paternal grandmother status Scania, Quebec and Utah, 1650-1900, Abridged Table

[document]Appendix A

Women's risk of next birth, by select characteristics Scania, Quebec-St. Lawrence, Quebec-Saguenay Lac St. Jean and Utah, 1650-1900, full table

[document]Appendix B

Women's risk of next birth, by select characteristics Scania, Quebec-St. Lawrence, Quebec-Saguenay Lac St. Jean and Utah, 1650-1900, full table

Contents

1. Human Evolutionary Demography: Introduction and Rationale

(pp. 1–24)
  • Rebecca Sear
  • Oskar Burger
  • Ronald Lee

2. Evolution in the History of Population Thought

(pp. 27–56)
  • Philip Kreager

3. A Biologist’s Perspective on Human Evolutionary Demography

(pp. 57–70)
  • Bobbi S. Low

4. Anthropological and Evolutionary Demography

(pp. 71–106)
  • Kim Hill

5. Controversies and Unfinished Business in Hadza Demography and Evolutionary Ecology

(pp. 109–130)
  • Nicholas Blurton Jones

6. Ecological Evolutionary Demography: Understanding Variation in Demographic Behaviour

(pp. 131–168)
  • Siobhán M. Mattison
  • Mary K. Shenk

7. Contextual Effects on Fertility and Mortality: Complementary Contributions from Demography and Evolutionary Life History Theory

(pp. 169–192)
  • Caroline Uggla

8. Why Do We Do What We Do? Analysing the Evolutionary Function of Reproductive Behaviour

(pp. 197–210)
  • Ruth Mace

9. My Family and Other Animals:: Human Demography Under a Comparative Cross-Species Lens

(pp. 211–232)
  • Owen R Jones
  • Thomas H G Ezard
  • Claire Dooley
  • Kevin Healy
  • Dave J Hodgson
  • Markus Mueller
  • Stuart Townley
  • Roberto Salguero-Gomez

10. The Role of Ontogeny in Understanding Human Demographic Behaviour

(pp. 233–250)
  • Paula Sheppard
  • David A. Coall

11. How It Works: The Biological Mechanisms that Generate Demographic Diversity

(pp. 251–290)
  • Virginia J. Vitzthum

12. Genetic Evolutionary Demography

(pp. 293–306)
  • Kenneth W. Wachter

13. Genetics and Reproductive Behaviour: A Review

(pp. 307–326)
  • Melinda C. Mills
  • Felix C. Tropf

14. Measuring Selection for Quantitative Traits in Human Populations

(pp. 329–344)
  • Jacob A Moorad

15. Demographic Sources of Variation in Fitness

(pp. 345–360)
  • Silke van Daalen
  • Hal Caswell

16. Ageing in the Wild, Residual Demography and Discovery of a Stationary Population Equality

(pp. 361–378)
  • James R. Carey

17. Human Mortality from Beginning to End: What Does Natural Selection Have to Do with It?

(pp. 379–398)
  • Steven Hecht Orzack
  • Daniel Levitis

18. Sociality, Food Sharing, and the Evolution of Life Histories

(pp. 401–422)
  • Ronald Lee
  • Carl Boe

19. Evolutionary Demography of the Great Apes

(pp. 423–474)
  • Melissa Emery Thompson
  • Kristin Sabbi

20. Did Grandmothers Enhance Reproductive Success in Historic Populations? Testing Evolutionary Theories on Historical Demographic Data in Scandinavia and North America

(pp. 475–502)
  • Lisa Dillon
  • Alla Chernenko
  • Martin Dribe
  • Sacha Engelhardt
  • Alain Gagnon
  • Heidi A. Hanson
  • Huong Meeks
  • Luciana Quaranta
  • Ken R. Smith
  • Hélène Vézina

21. The Challenges of Evolutionary Biodemography and the Example of Menopause

(pp. 503–512)
  • Shripad Tuljapurkar

22. A Theory of Culture for Evolutionary Demography

(pp. 517–550)
  • Heidi Colleran

23. Bateman’s Principles and the Study of Evolutionary Demography

(pp. 551–574)
  • Monique Borgerhoff Mulder

24. What Are Couples Made of? Union Formation in High-income Societies

(pp. 575–598)
  • Anna Rotkirch

25. Cooperation and Competition Begin at Home: Bridging Household Ecology and Human Evolutionary Demography

(pp. 599–616)
  • Julia A. Jennings

26. Historical Family Reconstitution Databases in the Study of Kinship Influences on Demographic Outcomes

(pp. 617–634)
  • Kai P. Willführ
  • Jonathan F. Fox
  • Eckart Voland

27. The Impact of Social Dynamics on Life History Trajectory and Demographic Traits: Insights from the “Producer Scrounger” Game

(pp. 637–656)
  • Jonathan Wells

28. Pathways of Density Dependence and Natural Selection in Modern Humans

(pp. 657–668)
  • John P. DeLong

29. Evolutionary Approaches to Population Health: Insights on Polygynous Marriage, “Child Marriage” and Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting

(pp. 669–692)
  • David W. Lawson
  • Mhairi A. Gibson

30. The Biodemography of Human Health in Contemporary Non-industrial Populations: Insights from the Tsimane Health and Life History Project

(pp. 693–714)
  • Michael Gurven
  • Hillard Kaplan
  • Benjamin Trumble
  • Jonathan Stieglitz

31. Trade-Offs between Mortality Components in Life History Evolution: The Case of Cancers

(pp. 715–740)
  • Samuel Pavard
  • C. Jessica E. Metcalf

32. Human Evolutionary Demography: Closing Thoughts

(pp. 741–758)
  • Oskar Burger
  • Ronald Lee
  • Rebecca Sear

Contributors

Oskar Burger

(editor)
Senior Research Manager and head of the Quantitative Best Practices Team at OMNI Institute
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7552-5851

Oskar Burger is Senior Research Manager and head of the Quantitative Best Practices Team at OMNI Institute, an applied social science consultancy. He received his PhD in Anthropology at the University of New Mexico in 2011 and worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research from 2012 to 2015. He has worked on topics such as aging, population growth, global public health, and program evaluation.

Ronald Lee

(editor)
Emeritus Professor of Demography and Economics at University of California, Berkeley
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9755-0436

Ronald Lee is an Emeritus Professor of Demography and Economics at the University of California at Berkeley, with a 1967 MA in Demography from Berkeley and a 1971 Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard. His interest in intergenerational transfers in contemporary human societies led him to begin working on evolutionary theories of aging, mathematical life history theory and the evolution of social organization across species.

Rebecca Sear

(editor)
Director of the Centre for Culture and Evolution at Brunel University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4315-0223

Rebecca Sear is a demographer, anthropologist and human behavioural ecologist who works on questions of demographic and public health interest, including fertility and reproductive development, child health and mortality, and health inequalities; with a particular interest in how family relationships influence these outcomes. She is co-Founder of the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association, and currently Director of the Centre for Culture and Evolution at Brunel University London.