Adaptive Consequenses of Partible Paternity

这个项目涉及来自宾夕法尼亚州立大学的一位文化人类学家的研究。 该项目将测试委内瑞拉低地一个部落群体中社会父权制度的演变意义，该制度允许多名男子声称自己是一个孩子的父亲。 当父亲身份得到承认时，成年人有责任作为父母照顾子女。 假设是，一些母亲（在男性因杀人死亡率高的地区）会声称，男子与母亲的孩子有父亲的联系，以增加自己和孩子成功生存的机会。 该项目将收集大约70名妇女的生殖数据，以添加到调查人员的数据库中，并将完成大约800名儿童的数据。 这项研究很重要，因为它将检验一种理论，即“多重父亲身份”在一个相对简单的森林居住社会群体中的积极作用。 这将促进我们对人类历史上原始社会群体可能的社会安排的理解。

This project involves the research of a cultural anthropologist from Pennsylvania State University. The project will test the evolutionary significance of a system of social paternity among a tribal group in lowland Venezuela which allows multiple males to claim paternity of a child. When paternity is recognized, the adult has responsibilities to care for the child as a parent. The hypothesis is that some mothers (in regions with high male death rates due to homicide) will claim that men have paternal ties to the mothers' children in order to increase their own, and their children's chances of successful survival. The project will collect reproduction data on about 70 women to add to the investigator's data base, and will complete data on about 800 children. This research is important because it will test a theory of the positive functions of `multiple paternity` in a relatively simple forest-dwelling social group. This will advance our understanding of the likely social arrangements of primitive social groups in human history.