Hillard Kaplan: University of New Mexico Department of Anthropology

This paper will present an overview of age-specific mortality rates among hunter-gatherers and forager-horticulturalists. It will also present new data on resource transfers and physical rates of aging among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists in Bolivia. It will be argued that the balance of costs and benefits of maintenance and repair of the human soma have resulted in a modal adult age at death of 70 or so years. Seven decades of life may be considered the evolved species-typical lifespan of Homo sapiens.