Embodied Capital and Extra-somatic Wealth in Human Evolution and Human History

Abstract

simultaneous effects of natural selection on the brain and on the life span, it extends the standard life history theory in biology which organizes research into the evolutionary forces shaping age-schedules of fertility and mortality. This extension, the embodied capital theory, integrates existing models with an economic analysis of capital investments and the value of life. The chapter begins with a brief introduction to embodied capital theory, and then applies it to understanding major trends in primate evolution and the specific characteristics of humans. The evolution of brain size, intelligence, and life histories in the primate order are addressed first. The evolution of the human life course is then considered, with a specific focus on the relationship between cognitive development, economic productivity, and longevity. It will be argued that the evolutionofthehumanbrainentailed aseries ofcoevolutionary responses in human development and aging. The second section on embodied capital and extrasomatic wealth discusses humans in a comparative context, beginning with the hunting and gathering lifestyle because of its relevance to the vast majority of human evolutionary history. However, in the past 10000 years human history traced a series of behavioral adaptations based on ecology and individual condition. The introduction of extra-somatic capital, first in the form of livestock and later in land and other types of wealth and power, radically changed the shape of human life history parameters and produced new patterns of fertility, parental investment, and reproductive regimes as access to extra-somatic capital became a focus of life history strategies. Finally, modern skills-based, competitive labor markets, combined with reduced fertility during the