#499 Humans Aren’t Supposed to Live This Long (Grandmothers Might Explain Why) - Dr Kristen Hawkes

Professor Kristen Hawkes is a pioneering anthropologist whose work helped bring the grandmother hypothesis to the spotlight of human evolution research. Through fieldwork and evolutionary theory, she argued that older women may have played a crucial role in shaping the human life course, not just by living longer, but by helping feed and support grandchildren. That idea helped reframe menopause, longevity, and family cooperation as possible drivers of what makes humans distinct and what explains our longer lifespans.

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Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:05 How Kristen started to think about the paradox of grandmother longevity

09:15 What accounts for variation in adult mortality across lifespan

13:40 Difference in male and female longevity

17:20 Why human babies are very dependent

20:05 Bon Charge sponsorship

21:10 Dynamics of human social evolution and longevity

23:05 How longer weening period in human babies contributes to our intelligence

29:35 Weening and intelligence

34:25 Evolutionary explanation for grandparents

36:35 The contribtion of hunting success vs gathering to children size in Hadza

47:05 Does the grandmother hypothesis make sense

48:15 Role of DHA and seafood in human brain evolution

51:35 Social hierarchy of grandparents in the Hadza

56:01 Grandfathers

01:08:35 Role of grandparents in the modern world

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