ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the grandmother hypothesis and the life history patterns it may explain, note that it joins other challenges to the hunting hypothesis. It discusses alternative predictions about human evolution based on the idea that mother-child food sharing and the grandmothering it permits are among their most important behavioral characteristics. The grandmother hypothesis suggests a different model of human evolution than the conventional one that makes men's big game hunting and provisioning of mates and offspring the keystone human adaptation. The grandmother hypothesis implies that childbearing women produces babies faster than otherwise expected because of grandmothers' contribution to that production. The grandmother hypothesis should stimulate increased attention to the activities of older women and explicit examination of the spatial proximity of mothers and daughters. The grandmother hypothesis provides a rationale for the modeling needed to identify critical tests.
