M Gurven
Biographic Data
| ID | 3863 |
|---|---|
| NAME | M Gurven |
| GIVEN NAMES | M |
| FAMILY NAME | Gurven |
| SIGNATURE | GURVEN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Santa Barbara |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5661-527X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 117 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1066 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 117 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 20 |
Blood Pressure Changes During Aging and Menopause Among Forager‐Horticulturalists in the Bolivian Amazon
Development and Assessment of Tailored Illustrations to Enhance Community Understandings of Genetics Topics
Exceptionally low mortality despite widespread Covid-19 infection among Indigenous Tsimane and Moseten of Bolivia
Object play in Tsimane children
Sex-specific division of labour and the associated use of different subsistence techniques by males (e.g. hunting) and females (e.g. gathering) has played an important role in shaping human societies. Skills needed in adulthood are practiced in play during childhood and object play has been proposed to foster tool-use skills necessary for adult subsistence techniques. Here, we investigated sex differences in the ontogeny of object play in Tsimane…
Masculine voice is associated with better mucosal immune defense in adolescent and adult males
Cross-cousin marriage among Tsimane forager–horticulturalists during demographic transition and market integration
Although still prevalent in many human societies, the practice of cousin marriage has precipitously declined in populations undergoing rapid demographic and socioeconomic change. However, it is still unclear whether changes in the structure of the marriage pool or changes in the fitness-relevant consequences of cousin marriage more strongly influence the frequency of cousin marriage. Here, we use genealogical data collected by the Tsimane Health …
Health Disparities Among Indigenous Peoples
The health of Indigenous populations suffers compared with that of non-Indigenous neighbors in every country. Although health deficits have long been recognized, remedies are confounded by multifactorial causes, stemming from persistent social and epidemiological circumstances, including inequality, racism, and marginalization. In light of the global morbidity and mortality burden from heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, cardiometabolic health n…
Cognitive foundations for helping and harming others
What does prey harvest composition signal to a social audience
Cultural transmission vectors of essential knowledge and skills among Tsimane forager-farmers
Humans transmit cultural information to others in a variety of ways that can affect productivity, cultural success, and ultimately fitness. Not all potential transmitters are expected to be equally preferred by learners or equally willing to influence their culture acquisition. Across socioeconomic opportunities and ages in the human life course, costs and benefits to both learners and potential transmitters are expected to vary, affecting rates …
Energetic costs of testosterone in two subsistence populations
OBJECTIVE: Testosterone plays a role in mediating energetic trade-offs between growth, maintenance, and reproduction. Investments in a high testosterone phenotype trade-off against other functions, particularly survival-enhancing immune function and cellular repair; thus only individuals in good condition can maintain both a high testosterone phenotype and somatic maintenance. While these effects are observed in experimental manipulations, they a…
Who helps Tsimane youth
We examine various forms of helping behaviour among Tsimane Amerindians of Bolivia, focusing on the provision of shelter, childcare, food, sickcare, cultural influence and traditional story knowledge. Kin selection theory traditionally explains nepotistic nurturing of youth by closely related kin. However, less attention has been given to understanding the help provided by individuals without close genetic relatedness. To explain who provides var…
Cultural variation in running techniques among non-industrial societies
Research among non-industrial societies suggests that body kinematics adopted during running vary between groups according to the cultural importance of running. Among groups in which running is common and an important part of cultural identity, runners tend to adopt what exercise scientists and coaches consider to be good technique for avoiding injury and maximising performance. In contrast, among groups in which running is not particularly cult…
Variability in energy expenditure is much greater in males than females
In mammals, trait variation is often reported to be greater among males than females. However, to date, mainly only morphological traits have been studied. Energy expenditure represents the metabolic costs of multiple physical, physiological, and behavioral traits. Energy expenditure could exhibit particularly high greater male variation through a cumulative effect if those traits mostly exhibit greater male variation, or a lack of greater male v…
Forest terrains influence walking kinematics among indigenous Tsimane of the Bolivian Amazon
Laboratory-based studies indicate that a major evolutionary advantage of bipedalism is enabling humans to walk with relatively low energy expenditure. However, such studies typically record subjects walking on even surfaces or treadmills that do not represent the irregular terrains our species encounters in natural environments. To date, few studies have quantified walking kinematics on natural terrains. Here we used high-speed video to record ma…
Do computed tomography findings agree with traditional osteological examination? The case of porous cranial lesions
Traditional and biomedical maternal and neonatal care practices in a rural Indigenous population of the Bolivian Amazon
In recent decades, Bolivia has expanded maternal and child health insurance coverage to improve access to prenatal and early life health care. Nationally, however, maternal and child health disparities persist along a rural-urban divide. Research is needed among rural populations to better understand local barriers to health care access and usage. Particularly among Indigenous populations, disparities may be compounded by differences in preferenc…
The Case of Brazil
This article analyzes the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of the Amazonian populations of Brazil. Following the social quality approach, it inquires into how COVID-19 intertwined with and reinforced underlying trends and inequalities in different life domains expressed in long-term societal complexities, urban–rural dynamics, and environmental transformations. The article finds that the pandemic, following coloniality of power patte…
Kinship intensity and the use of mental states in moral judgment across societies
Weird bodies
Greater humility can help expand evolutionary social science
Toward Integration of the Niche Diversity Hypothesis With Other Explanations for Personality Covariation
The hypothesis of a human-universal personality structure is undermined by cross-cultural studies in small-scale societies. To explain cross-population differences in patterns of behavioral covariance, we proposed the niche diversity hypothesis, which holds that the degree of behavioral covariation within a population is inversely related to the number and diversity of niches within its socioecology. This hypothesis is formalized as a computation…
Old friends and friendly fire
OBJECTIVES: Despite public health concerns about hookworm infection in pregnancy, little is known about immune profiles associated with hookworm (Necator americanus and Ancylostoma duodenale) infection during pregnancy. Fetal tolerance requirements may constrain maternal immune response to hookworm, thereby increasing susceptibility to new infections or increasing hemoglobin loss. To explore this possibility, we study systemic immune response and…
Relationship of sanitation, water boiling, and mosquito nets to health biomarkers in a rural subsistence population
OBJECTIVES: Throughout human evolutionary history, parasites and pathogens were a major cause of mortality-modern urban life with public health infrastructure has changed disease exposure. We examine associations between boiling water, using latrines, mosquito net usage, and biomarkers among the Tsimane, a nonindustrial subsistence population with little public health infrastructure. METHODS: We conducted cross sectional surveys on water, latrine…
Does exposure to parasites modify relationships between diurnal cortisol and leukocytes among Honduran women
BACKGROUND: Altered hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function and related changes in circulating glucocorticoids have been implicated in the pathogenesis of numerous diseases that involve dysregulated immune function. Glucocorticoid hormones have both direct and indirect modulatory effects on both pro- and anti-inflammatory aspects of the immune system, including granulocytic and lymphocytic leukocyte subsets. However, past findings are compl…
Why Do Men Hunt
The role of men in hunter-gatherer societies has been subject to vigorous debate over the past 15 years. The proposal that men hunt wild game as a form of status signaling or "showing off" to provide reproductive benefits to the hunter challenges the traditional view that men hunt to provision their families. Two broad assumptions underlie the signaling view: (1) hunting is a poor means of obtaining food, and (2) hunted game is a public good shar…
Longevity Among Hunter- Gatherers
Post-reproductive longevity is a robust feature of human life and not only a recent phenomenon caused by improvements in sanitation, public health, and medical advances. We argue for an adaptive life span of 68-78 years for modernHomo sapiensbased on our analysis of mortality profiles obtained from small-scale hunter-gatherer and horticultural populations from around the world. We compare patterns of survivorship across the life span, rates of se…
Leadership in an Egalitarian Society
Wealth Transmission and Inequality among Hunter-Gatherers
We report quantitative estimates of intergenerational transmission and population-wide inequality for wealth measures in a set of hunter-gatherer populations. Wealth is defined broadly as factors that contribute to individual or household well-being, ranging from embodied forms such as weight and hunting success to material forms such household goods, as well as relational wealth in exchange partners. Intergenerational wealth transmission is low …
How long does it take to become a proficient hunter? Implications for the evolution of extended development and long life span
Production Systems, Inheritance, and Inequality in Premodern Societies
Premodern human societies differ greatly in socioeconomic inequality. Despite much useful theorizing on the causes of these differences, individual-level quantitative data on wealth inequality is lacking. The papers in this special section provide the first comparable estimates of intergenerational wealth transmission and inequality in premodern societies, with data on more than 40 measures of embodied, material, and relational wealth from 21 pre…
Food Transfers Among Hiwi Foragers of Venezuela
Domestication Alone Does Not Lead to Inequality
We present empirical measures of wealth inequality and its intergenerational transmission among four horticulturalist populations. Wealth is construed broadly as embodied somatic and neural capital, including body size, fertility and cultural knowledge, material capital such as land and household wealth, and relational capital in the form of coalitional support and field labor. Wealth inequality is moderate for most forms of wealth, and intergene…
Determinants of time allocation across the lifespan
Collective Action in Action
Experiments have become a popular method to study altruism and cooperation in laboratory and, more recently, in field settings. However, few studies have examined whether behavior in experiments tells us anything about behavior in the "real world." To investigate the external validity of several common experimental economics games, we compare game behavior with prosocial behavior among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of lowland Bolivia. We find…
Hunting, social status and biological fitness
Hunting performance may be one of the most important routes to high prestige or social status among men in hunter-gatherer societies. Higher social status based on hunting performance has been linked to higher biological fitness outcomes almost everywhere this relationship has been investigated. This paper explores the proximate pathways underlying the positive correlation between hunting success and fitness, and discusses these in light of recen…
Does Market Integration Buffer Risk, Erode Traditional Sharing Practices and Increase Inequality? A Test among Bolivian Forager-Farmers
The Evolution of Contingent Cooperation
Reciprocal altruism has been proposed as a foundation of cooperation in humans. The core feature of reciprocity is the contingent relationship between acts of giving and receiving among social partners. However, contingency has remained largely an elusive concept with little empirical scrutiny. Food sharing in smallscale, nonmarket societies is a classic context for examining conditional cooperation. The debate concerning whether food sharing is …
Reservation food sharing among the Ache of Paraguay
A Bioeconomic Approach to Marriage and the Sexual Division of Labor
Children may be viewed as public goods whereby both parents receive equal genetic benefits yet one parent often invests more heavily than the other. We introduce a microeconomic framework for understanding household investment decisions to address questions concerning conflicts of interest over types and amount of work effort among married men and women. Although gains and costs of marriage may not be spread equally among marriage partners, marri…
Living with Kin in Lowland Horticultural Societies
Postmarital residence patterns in traditional human societies figure prominently in models of hominid social evolution with arguments for patrilocal human bands similar in structure to female-dispersal systems in other African apes. However, considerable flexibility in hunter-gatherer cultures has led to their characterization as primarily multilocal. Horticulturalists are associated with larger, more sedentary social groups with more political i…
Natural cooperators
The study of cooperation is rich with theoretical models and laboratory experiments that have greatly advanced our knowledge of human uniqueness, but have sometimes lacked ecological validity. We therefore emphasize the need to tie discussions of human cooperation to the natural history of our species and its closest relatives, focusing on behavioral contexts best suited to reveal underlying selection pressures and evolved decision rules. Food sh…
The goals of direct paternal care among a South Amerindian population
Human males are remarkable among mammals in the level of investment they provide to their wives and children. However, there has been debate as to the degree to which men actually invest and through which fitness pathways the benefits of familial investment are realized. Much of the previous research exploring these issues has focused on men's roles as providers, but few have explored correlates of men's direct parental care. Although this is rea…
How universal is the Big Five? Testing the five-factor model of personality variation among forager–farmers in the Bolivian Amazon
The five-factor model (FFM) of personality variation has been replicated across a range of human societies, suggesting the FFM is a human universal. However, most studies of the FFM have been restricted to literate, urban populations, which are uncharacteristic of the majority of human evolutionary history. We present the first test of the FFM in a largely illiterate, indigenous society. Tsimane forager-horticulturalist men and women of Bolivia (…
From Forest to Reservation
This article presents detailed quantitative descriptions of food distributions among a group of forager-horticulturalists, the Ache of Paraguay. Food transfer patterns for Ache during periods of nomadic foraging are compared with those of Ache living a horticulture-based existence at a permanent settlement. We further explore how characteristics of resources and the methods of production, group size, and the spatial landscape can influence the ki…
Modernization is associated with intensive breastfeeding patterns in the Bolivian Amazon
Growth references for Tsimane forager‐horticulturalists of the Bolivian Amazon
International references for BMI-for-age and WFH are likely appropriate for Tsimane, but differences in height-for-age and weight-for-age suggest Tsimane specific references may be useful for these measures
Low mineral density of a weight‐bearing bone among adult women in a high fertility population
Evolutionary theories of aging posit that greater reproductive effort causes somatic decline given a fundamental trade‐off between investing energy in reproduction and repair. Few studies in high fertility human populations support this hypothesis, and problems of phenotypic correlation can obscure the expected trade‐off between reproduction and somatic condition. This cross‐sectional study investigates whether greater reproductive effort is asso…
Skill ontogeny among Tsimane forager‐horticulturalists
OBJECTIVES: We investigate whether age profiles of Tsimane forager-horticulturalists' reported skill development are consistent with predictions derived from life history theory about the timing of productivity and reproduction. Previous studies of forager skill development have often focused on a few abilities (e.g. hunting), and neglected the broad range of skills and services typical of forager economies (e.g. childcare, craft production, musi…
Do Markets Worsen Economic Inequalities? Kuznets in the Bush
Genetic traces of ancient demography
Patterns of gene differences among humans contain information about the demographic history of our species. Haploid loci like mitochondrial DNA and the nonrecombining part of the Y chromosome show a pattern indicating expansion from a population of only several thousand during the late middle or early upper Pleistocene. Nuclear short tandem repeat loci also show evidence of this expansion. Both mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome coalesce with…
“It's a Wonderful Life”
Food Transfers Among Hiwi Foragers of Venezuela
Reservation food sharing among the Ache of Paraguay
From Forest to Reservation
This article presents detailed quantitative descriptions of food distributions among a group of forager-horticulturalists, the Ache of Paraguay. Food transfer patterns for Ache during periods of nomadic foraging are compared with those of Ache living a horticulture-based existence at a permanent settlement. We further explore how characteristics of resources and the methods of production, group size, and the spatial landscape can influence the ki…
To give and to give not
The transfer of food among group members is a ubiquitous feature of small-scale forager and forager-agricultural populations. The uniqueness of pervasive sharing among humans, especially among unrelated individuals, has led researchers to evaluate numerous hypotheses about the adaptive functions and patterns of sharing in different ecologies. This article attempts to organize available cross-cultural evidence pertaining to several contentious evo…
On Fertile Ground
Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Cooperation. Peter Hammerstein
Do Markets Worsen Economic Inequalities? Kuznets in the Bush
“Economic man” in cross-cultural perspective
Researchers from across the social sciences have found consistent deviations from the predictions of the canonical model of self-interest in hundreds of experiments from around the world. This research, however, cannot determine whether the uniformity results from universal patterns of human behavior or from the limited cultural variation available among the university students used in virtually all prior experimental work. To address this, we un…
Female intrasexual competition and reputational effects on attractiveness among the Tsimane of Bolivia
Evolutionary Anthropology Society
Growth rates and life histories in twenty‐two small‐scale societies
This study investigates variation in body growth (cross‐sectional height and weight velocity) among a sample of 22 small‐scale societies. Considerable variation in growth exists among hunter‐gatherers that overlaps heavily with growth trajectories present in groups focusing more on horticulture. Intergroup variation tends to track environmental conditions, with societies under more favorable conditions displaying faster growth and earlier puberty…
How long does it take to become a proficient hunter? Implications for the evolution of extended development and long life span
Hunting, social status and biological fitness
Hunting performance may be one of the most important routes to high prestige or social status among men in hunter-gatherer societies. Higher social status based on hunting performance has been linked to higher biological fitness outcomes almost everywhere this relationship has been investigated. This paper explores the proximate pathways underlying the positive correlation between hunting success and fitness, and discusses these in light of recen…
Determinants of time allocation across the lifespan
The Evolution of Contingent Cooperation
Reciprocal altruism has been proposed as a foundation of cooperation in humans. The core feature of reciprocity is the contingent relationship between acts of giving and receiving among social partners. However, contingency has remained largely an elusive concept with little empirical scrutiny. Food sharing in smallscale, nonmarket societies is a classic context for examining conditional cooperation. The debate concerning whether food sharing is …
The Evolution of Human Life History . Kristen Hawkes , Richard R. Paine
Mortality experience of Tsimane Amerindians of Bolivia
This paper examines regional and temporal trends in mortality patterns among the Tsimane, a population of small-scale forager-horticulturalists in lowland Bolivia. We compare age-specific mortality in remote forest and riverine regions with that in more acculturated villages and examine mortality changes among all age groups over the past 50 years. Discrete-time logistic regression is used to examine impacts of region, period, sex, and age on mor…
Longevity Among Hunter- Gatherers
Post-reproductive longevity is a robust feature of human life and not only a recent phenomenon caused by improvements in sanitation, public health, and medical advances. We argue for an adaptive life span of 68-78 years for modernHomo sapiensbased on our analysis of mortality profiles obtained from small-scale hunter-gatherer and horticultural populations from around the world. We compare patterns of survivorship across the life span, rates of se…
Reciprocal altruism, rather than kin selection, maintains nepotistic food transfers on an Ache reservation
The multiple dimensions of male social status in an Amazonian society☆
Top-down and bottom-up research in biodemography
The most efficient way to make scientific progress in biodemography is to encourage bi-directional exchange between â top-downâ and â bottom-upâ research. This will entail exchange along the continuum of research from microscopic intracellular processes
Collective Action in Action
Experiments have become a popular method to study altruism and cooperation in laboratory and, more recently, in field settings. However, few studies have examined whether behavior in experiments tells us anything about behavior in the "real world." To investigate the external validity of several common experimental economics games, we compare game behavior with prosocial behavior among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of lowland Bolivia. We find…
The goals of direct paternal care among a South Amerindian population
Human males are remarkable among mammals in the level of investment they provide to their wives and children. However, there has been debate as to the degree to which men actually invest and through which fitness pathways the benefits of familial investment are realized. Much of the previous research exploring these issues has focused on men's roles as providers, but few have explored correlates of men's direct parental care. Although this is rea…
Biology (65 works) · Psychology (52 works) · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior (51 works) · Demography (44 works) · Sociology (44 works) · Population (40 works) · Medicine (36 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (35 works) · Ecology (34 works) · Geography (31 works)