Thanks grandma! Human longevity 'down to older females who carried on caring for their offspring's young families'

Computer simulation shows how with a little grandmothering animals with chimpanzee lifespans can develop human lifespans in 60,000 years Grandmothers would have helped to dig up tubers and crack nuts while younger adults got on with childrearing and hunting

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 17:26 EST, 23 October 2012 | UPDATED: 17:26 EST, 23 October 2012

Human longevity is all thanks to our grandmothers' efforts to care for their family, new research suggests.

A theory that humans evolved longer adult lifespans than apes because grandmothers helped feed their grandchildren has been proved by a computer simulation of evolution, scientists claim.

Until now anthropologists were divided as to whether humans long lives were down to the 'grandmother hypothesis' or 'hunting hypothesis.'

Crucial to our evolution: Grandmothers who lived on to help with feeding their daughters offspring helped to pass on the longevity gene to future generations, scientists now believe

The grandmother hypothesis says that when grandmothers help feed their grandchildren after weaning, their daughters can produce more children at shorter intervals.

Because more children are born a few ancestral females who lived long enough to become grandmothers passed their longevity genes to more descendants, who had longer adult lifespans as a result.

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Thanks grandma! Human longevity 'down to older females who carried on caring for their offspring's young families'