Figure 2.

(A) The life history of an ancestral hominin female is proposed to resemble that of the other great apes. A female nurses an infant until it becomes quasi‐independent (coinciding with adrenarche). It is only after this child is capable of self‐support that the female is able to nurse her next offspring. (B) The modern human life history involves early weaning onto a supplemental diet before an offspring is self‐supporting, thus freeing the mother to be able to nurse a younger sibling. A mother may thus be simultaneously engaged in the intensive support of two offspring, providing the younger with milk and the elder with supplemental foods. In the stylized version of this life history, it is not until the elder child goes through adrenarche and the younger child is weaned that the mother is free to nurse her next child. The intensive pattern of reproduction by human females was made possible by other group members providing the mother with nutritional support during child care [Color figure can be viewed at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com]