Child and Adolescent Foraging: New Directions in Evolutionary Research

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. The published version of this Preprint is available: https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.22020. This is version 2 of this Preprint.

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Authors

Ilaria Pretelli , Alyssa Crittenden, Edmond Dounias, Sagan Friant, Jeremy Koster, Karen Kramer, Shani Mangola, Almudena Mari Saez, Sheina Lew-Levy

Abstract

Young children and adolescents in subsistence societies forage for a wide range of resources. They often target child-specific foods, they can be very successful foragers, and they share their produce widely within and outside of their nuclear family. At the same time, while foraging they face risky situations and are exposed to diseases that can influence their immune development. However, children’s foraging has largely been explained in the light of their future (adult) behavior. Here, we reinterpret findings from human behavioral ecology, evolutionary medicine and cultural evolution to center foraging children’s contributions to life history evolution, community resilience and immune development. We highlight the need to foreground immediate alongside delayed benefits and costs of foraging, including inclusive fitness benefits, when discussing children’s food production from an evolutionary perspective. We conclude by recommending that researchers carefully consider children’s social and ecological context, develop cross-cultural perspectives, and incorporate children’s foraging into Indigenous sovereignty discourse.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.32942/X2X02R

Subjects

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Keywords

foraging, childhood, evolution, Immune system, community resilience, life history

Dates

Published: 2023-12-21 05:54

Last Updated: 2024-01-15 11:50

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License

CC-BY Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International

Additional Metadata

Language:
English

Conflict of interest statement:
None

Data and Code Availability Statement:
Not applicable