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Fathers and their children in the first three years of life
Frank L'Engle Williams examines the anthropological record for evidence of the social behaviors associated with paternity, suggesting that ample evidence exists for the importance of such behaviors for infant survival. Focusing on the first three postnatal years, he considers the implications of father care, both in the fossil record and in more recent cross-cultural research, for the development of such distinctively human traits as bipedalism, extensive brain growth, language and socialization. He also reviews the rituals by which many human societies construct and reinforce the meanings of socially recognized fatherhood, hormonal, physiological and social changes incorporated into specific cultural manifestations of paternity. Father care was adaptive within the context of the parental pair bond, and shaped how infants developed socially and biologically. The initial imprinting of socially recognized fathers during the first few postnatal years may have sustained culturally-sanctioned indirect care such as provisioning and protection of dependents for nearly two decades thereafter. In modern humans, this three-year window is critical to father-child bonding, which differs so intrinsically from the mother-child relationship. By increasing the survival of children in the past, present and quite possibly the future, father care may be a driving force in the biological and cultural evolution of Homo sapiens.
How Long Have Fathers Carried and Cared for Their Infants? -- Life Cycle -- The Birth of a Child and the "Birth" of a Socially Recognized Father -- Couvade and Hormonal Correlates of Paternity -- Postnatal Infant Development -- Reproductive Careers among Forager Males -- The Duration of Father Care Estimated from Skeletal Maturation and Decline -- Evidence of Father Care in Humans and Animals -- Forager Fathers and Infants Cross-culturally -- Paternal Behavior in Nonhuman Primates and Other Animals -- Evolutionary Perspectives -- The Evolution of Carrying Behavior -- Hyper-encephalization of Neonates -- Becoming Human -- Epilogue: The Role of Father Care: Past, Present, and Future.
Includes bibliographical references (pages [191]-212) and index.
Texas A & M University anthropology series ; no. 20