Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 26, 2025
07:26
Foraging Path-length Protocol for Drosophila melanogaster Larvae
Published on: April 23, 2016
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Foraging complexity and the evolution of childhood.
Ilaria Pretelli1, Erik Ringen2, Sheina Lew-Levy1,3
1Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Science Advances
|October 12, 2022
Summary
Humans evolved long childhoods to learn complex foraging skills. Children develop proficiency faster with easier resources like fruit, but take longer to master difficult ones like tubers and game, reaching adult levels later.
Area of Science:
- Human Evolution
- Developmental Biology
- Anthropology
Background:
- The extended juvenile period in humans is hypothesized to facilitate learning complex foraging skills.
- Previous research on foraging skill development and niche complexity has yielded inconsistent conclusions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify the skill-intensity of different foraging resources.
- To assess if children's foraging proficiency develops more slowly for skill-intensive resources.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of published records from child and adolescent foragers across 28 societies.
- Quantification of resource skill-intensity and assessment of proficiency development rates.
Main Results:
- Foraging returns for skill-intensive resources (tubers, game) increased slowly, reaching adult levels in adulthood.
- Foraging returns for less skill-intensive resources (fruit, fish/shellfish) increased rapidly, reaching adult levels by adolescence.
Conclusions:
- Findings support the hypothesis that long childhoods evolved for learning complex resource extraction in the human niche.
- Differential learning rates for resource types explain the extended developmental period in human foragers.
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