Targeting the Hunting Hypothesis: Review of Evidence From the Hadza

The hunting hypothesis holds that ancestral human males favored their own mates and children in sharing meat gained from big game hunting, a practice said to have led to the origin of nuclear families and related changes in life history. Data from East African Hadza hunter-gatherers operating in an environment like that prevalent when and where Homo evolved contradict key elements of this idea. An alternative model, the grandmother hypothesis, holds that senior women's foraging and food sharing led to life history changes that favored mate guarding, not paternal provisioning, in the formation of nuclear family-like social units. Relevant data and theory are reviewed and evaluated.