The latest stop in the #PDEx tour is being hosted at Psychology Today by Sex at Dawn:
There is no greater mystery in human evolution than the origins of our sexuality. Following the trail of clues available researchers have independently concluded that humans evolved through systems of monogamy, polygyny, as well as polyamory. However only one can be the culprit and, like a detective interrogating multiple suspects, the solution ultimately depends on which account you're willing to believe. Last year Owen Lovejoy made the case for monogamy based on the fossil remains of the early human ancestor Ardipithecus ramidus. Meanwhile, Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá have argued that polyamory (or, more precisely, a multimale-multifemale mating system) is the most likely scenario from an analysis that emphasized anthropology, behavioral biology, and physiology. To further complicate matters the third suspect in this mystery, polygyny, has been the conclusion from scientists conducting DNA analyses. These conflicting accounts therefore require careful detective work in order to determine which story is the most convincing.
Read the rest of the post here and stay tuned for the next entry in The Primate Diaries in Exile tour.
Hammer, M., Mendez, F., Cox, M., Woerner, A., & Wall, J. (2008). Sex-Biased Evolutionary Forces Shape Genomic Patterns of Human Diversity PLoS Genetics, 4 (9) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000202
