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Page AE, Ruiz M, Dyble M, Major-Smith D, Migliano AB, Myers S. Wealth, health and inequality in Agta foragers. Evol Med Public Health 2023; 11:149-162. [PMID: 37274122 PMCID: PMC10237286 DOI: 10.1093/emph/eoad015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2022] [Revised: 04/30/2023] [Indexed: 06/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Background and objectives There is significant evidence from large-scale, industrial and post-industrial societies that greater income and wealth inequality is negatively associated with both population health and increasing health inequalities. However, whether such relationships are inevitable and should be expected to impact the health of small-scale societies as they become more market-integrated is less clear. Methodology Here, using mixed-effect models, we explore the relationship between health, wealth, wealth inequality and health inequalities in a small-scale foraging population from the Philippines, the Agta. Results Across 11 camps, we find small to moderate degrees of wealth inequality (maximal Gini Coefficient 0.44) which is highest in the most permanent camps, where individuals engage more heavily in the formal market. However, in both adults (n = 161) and children (n = 215), we find little evidence that either wealth or wealth inequality associates with ill health, except for one measure of nutritional condition-red blood cell count. Conclusions and implications We interpret these results in the light of high levels of cooperation among the Agta which may buffer against the detrimental effects of wealth inequality documented in industrial and post-industrial societies. We observe little intergenerational wealth transmission, highlighting the fluid nature of wealth, and thus wealth inequality, particularly in mobile communities. The deterioration of nutritional status, as indicated by red blood cell counts, requires further investigation before concluding the Agta's extensive cooperation networks may be beginning to breakdown in the face of increasing inequality.
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Affiliation(s)
- Abigail E Page
- Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
| | - Milagros Ruiz
- School of Health and Social Care, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
- Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, UK
| | - Mark Dyble
- UCL Anthropology, University College London, London, UK
| | | | - Andrea B Migliano
- Department of Anthropology, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Sarah Myers
- UCL Anthropology, University College London, London, UK
- BirthRites Lise Meitner Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
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Musciotto F, Dobon B, Greenacre M, Mira A, Chaudhary N, Salali GD, Gerbault P, Schlaepfer R, Astete LH, Ngales M, Gomez-Gardenes J, Latora V, Battiston F, Bertranpetit J, Vinicius L, Migliano AB. Agta hunter-gatherer oral microbiomes are shaped by contact network structure. EVOLUTIONARY HUMAN SCIENCES 2023; 5:e9. [PMID: 37587930 PMCID: PMC10426009 DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2023.4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2022] [Revised: 12/24/2022] [Accepted: 01/08/2023] [Indexed: 02/25/2023] Open
Abstract
Here we investigate the effects of extensive sociality and mobility on the oral microbiome of 138 Agta hunter-gatherers from the Philippines. Our comparisons of microbiome composition showed that the Agta are more similar to Central African BaYaka hunter-gatherers than to neighbouring farmers. We also defined the Agta social microbiome as a set of 137 oral bacteria (only 7% of 1980 amplicon sequence variants) significantly influenced by social contact (quantified through wireless sensors of short-range interactions). We show that large interaction networks including strong links between close kin, spouses and even unrelated friends can significantly predict bacterial transmission networks across Agta camps. Finally, we show that more central individuals to social networks are also bacterial supersharers. We conclude that hunter-gatherer social microbiomes are predominantly pathogenic and were shaped by evolutionary tradeoffs between extensive sociality and disease spread.
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Affiliation(s)
- Federico Musciotto
- Dipartimento di Fisica e Chimica, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy
- Department of Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Begoña Dobon
- Department of Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Barcelona, Spain
| | - Michael Greenacre
- Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra & Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, Barcelona, Spain
- Faculty of Biosciences, Fisheries and Economics, University of Tromsø, Norway
| | - Alex Mira
- Department of Health and Genomics, Center for Advanced Research in Public Health, FISABIO Foundation, Valencia, Spain
- CIBER Center for Epidemiology and Public Health, Madrid, Spain
| | - Nikhil Chaudhary
- Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Gul Deniz Salali
- Department of Anthropology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Pascale Gerbault
- Department of Genetics and Evolution, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | | | - Leonora H. Astete
- Lyceum of the Philippines University, Intramuros, Manila, Philippines
| | - Marilyn Ngales
- Lyceum of the Philippines University, Intramuros, Manila, Philippines
| | - Jesus Gomez-Gardenes
- GOTHAM Lab, Institute for Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems, and Department of Condensed Matter Physics, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain
- Center for Computational Social Science, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan
| | - Vito Latora
- School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
- Dipartimento di Fisica ed Astronomia, Università di Catania and INFN, Catania, Italy
- Complexity Science Hub Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Federico Battiston
- Department of Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Department of Network and Data Science, Central European University, Vienna, Austria
| | - Jaume Bertranpetit
- Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Barcelona, Spain
| | - Lucio Vinicius
- Department of Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Department of Anthropology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Andrea Bamberg Migliano
- Department of Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Department of Anthropology, University College London, London, UK
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Page AE, Migliano AB, Dyble M, Major-Smith D, Viguier S, Hassan A. Sedentarization and maternal childcare networks: role of risk, gender and demography. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2023; 378:20210435. [PMID: 36440566 PMCID: PMC9703224 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0435] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2021] [Accepted: 05/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Women cooperate over multiple domains and while research from western contexts portrays women's networks as limited in size and breadth, women receive help, particularly with childcare, from a diverse range of individuals (allomothers). Nonetheless, little exploration has occurred into why we see such diversity. Wide maternal childcare networks may be a consequence of a lack of resource accumulation in mobile hunter-gatherers-where instead households rely on risk-pooling in informal insurance networks. By contrast, when households settle and accumulate resources, they are able to retain risk by absorbing losses. Thus, the size and composition of mothers' childcare networks may depend on risk-buffering, as captured by mobile and settled households in the Agta, a Philippine foraging population with diverse lifestyles. Across 78 children, we find that childcare from grandmothers and sisters was higher in settled camps, while childcare from male kin was lower, offering little support for risk-buffering. Nonetheless, girls' workloads were increased in settled camps while grandmothers had fewer dependent children, increasing their availability. These results point to gender-specific changes associated with shifting demographics as camps become larger and more settled. Evidently, women's social networks, rather than being constrained by biology, are responsive to the changing socioecological context. This article is part of the theme issue 'Cooperation among women: evolutionary and cross-cultural perspectives'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Abigail E. Page
- Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, UK
| | - Andrea B. Migliano
- Department of Anthropology, University of Zürich, Zurich 8006, Switzerland
| | - Mark Dyble
- Department of Anthropology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Daniel Major-Smith
- Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TH, UK
| | - Sylvain Viguier
- Department of Anthropology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
- Graphcore, Lynton House, 7–12 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9LT, UK
| | - Anushé Hassan
- Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, UK
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Beketov SV. Variation of the Secondary Sex Ratio in American Mink (Neovison vison). RUSS J GENET+ 2022. [DOI: 10.1134/s1022795422080026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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Grandpaternal care and child survival in a pastoralist society in western China. EVOL HUM BEHAV 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2022.06.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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Page AE, Emmott EH, Dyble M, Smith D, Chaudhary N, Viguier S, Migliano AB. Children are important too: juvenile playgroups and maternal childcare in a foraging population, the Agta. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2021; 376:20200026. [PMID: 33938270 PMCID: PMC8090817 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/30/2020] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Non-maternal carers (allomothers) are hypothesized to lighten the mother's workload, allowing for the specialized human life history including relatively short interbirth intervals and multiple dependent offspring. Here, using in-depth observational data on childcare provided to 78 Agta children (a foraging population in the northern Philippines; aged 0-6 years), we explore whether allomaternal childcare substitutes and decreases maternal childcare. We found that allomother caregiving was associated with reduced maternal childcare, but the substitutive effect varied depending on the source and type of care. Children-only playgroups consistently predicted a decrease in maternal childcare. While grandmothers were rarely available, their presence was negatively associated with maternal presence and childcare, and grandmothers performed similar childcare activities to mothers. These results underscore the importance of allomothering in reducing maternal childcare in the Agta. Our findings suggest that flexibility in childcare sources, including children-only playgroups, may have been the key to human life-history evolution. Overall, our results reinforce the necessity of a broad conceptualization of social support in human childcare. This article is part of the theme issue 'Multidisciplinary perspectives on social support and maternal-child health'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Abigail E. Page
- Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, UK
| | - Emily H. Emmott
- Department of Anthropology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Mark Dyble
- Department of Anthropology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Dan Smith
- Bristol Medical School (PHS), University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
| | - Nikhil Chaudhary
- Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Sylvain Viguier
- Department of Anthropology, University College London, London, UK
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Page AE, French JC. Reconstructing prehistoric demography: What role for extant hunter-gatherers? Evol Anthropol 2020; 29:332-345. [PMID: 33103830 DOI: 10.1002/evan.21869] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/03/2019] [Revised: 02/17/2020] [Accepted: 10/06/2020] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Demography is central to biological, behavioral, and cultural evolution. Knowledge of the demography of prehistoric populations of both Homo sapiens and earlier members of the genus Homo is, therefore, key to the study of human evolution. Unfortunately, demographic processes (fertility, mortality, migration) leave little mark on the archeological and paleoanthropological records. One common solution to this issue is the application of demographic data from extant hunter-gatherers to prehistory. With the aim of strengthening this line of enquiry, here we outline some pitfalls and their interpretative implications. In doing so, we provide recommendations about the application of hunter-gatherer data to the study of demographic trends throughout human evolution. We use published demographic data from extant hunter-gatherers to show that it is the diversity seen among extant hunter-gatherers-both intra- and inter-population variability-that is most relevant and useful for understanding past hunter-gatherer demography.
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Affiliation(s)
- Abigail E Page
- Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
| | - Jennifer C French
- Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
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The global male-bias in sex ratio at birth is sustained by the sex ratio genotypes of replacement offspring. Genetica 2019; 147:249-258. [DOI: 10.1007/s10709-019-00074-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2018] [Accepted: 07/18/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
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