Is there any evidence that humans mated according to the seasons as do almost all other animal species?

Question

Is there any evidence that humans mated according to the seasons as do almost all other animal species?

Answer 1

No, there isn't, and like our 'supposed' cousins, the Chimpanzee, wearing a suit and taking a 'law degree', there never will be.

It's just another of the thousands of colossal differences between the human being and any other creature on this planet, that, despite the closeness of DNA patterns (which are shared with EVERY living creature, in varying degrees) clearly indicates, the massive flaws in the theories of evolutionist's, regarding human beings evolving from a "common ancestor" of an Ape.

EDIT

Amusing how the evolutionists 'jump' to the 'thumbs down' key, when you touch their 'blind faith' nerve with the truth, isn't it?

Answer 2

I think it's a definite possibility that we exploited a particular season in which to reproduce - it makes sense not to have a child born, for example, in winter, when food is scarce. As for actual empirical evidence, there's no way to tell from fossil evidence of our ancestors what seasons we might have bred in - we may never know.

If you look at our closest relative among the great apes, the bonobo, you will find that not only can they reproduce every year, but they have s*x for pleasure with essentially everyone else in the group except for their mothers - in bonobo society, sexual contact is a means for conflict resolution.  We only split off from chimps and bonobos 6 or 7 million years ago, so that should give you some idea of the likelihood of humans ever having a mating season.

Answer 3

You have to go back into the lower primates, to find mating according to "Heat" cycles!

Answer 4

The short answer is 'no'.  When most human populations were hunter-gatherers (i.e. 99% of the time we've been around) we typically exploited different environments on a seasonal round, moving from different ecological habitats seasonally.  This extended into agricultural food production for the same reasons agriculture has a powerful seasonal schedule today.  However, like some other apes and other sexually flexible organisms, we do not seem to have a biologically specific mating season.  It is possible that our hominid ancestors did, but we do not currently have evidence nor the appropriate interpretive models to determine this.

Answer 5

Millions of years ago, or ancestral males began the practice of "provisioning" the females, in exchange for sexual favours (in the same way male chimpanzees do, after a successful hunt). Because they were successful, organised scavenger, hunter gatherers, with weapons, they were able to keep the females sufficiently well supplied with nutritionally high quality food, that some genetic variants were able to remain fertile for greater lengths of time, thereby producing more offspring, bearing that characteristic, and eventually predominating. Prior to that time, seasonal reproduction would have been a more successful reproductive strategy, for those with considerably more limited communication, planning, and manipulative skills.

Answer 6

I wondered that aswell, i don't think there is as far as i know

Answer 7

Actually it's not true that almost all animal species mate seasonally!

Seasonal breeding tends to be the norm in animal species which live in the temperate zones, and which therefore experience marked annual cycles in climate, daylength, food availability and so on. However, in the tropics, where annual cycles are much less marked or completely absent, seasonal breeding also disappears. For example, if you compare temperate zone deer species (such as the red deer) with tropical species such as the axis deer, you will find that generally the temperate species have a well defined breeding season, whereas the tropical species can breed throughout the year. This is very much tied in to availability of resources at different times in different parts of the world - obviously temperate species have to ensure that their offspring are born when there is the most food around, hence the development of breeding seasons and the appearance of so much new life in springtime here in the temperate zones...

Humans evolved in the tropics, so probably from the beginning there was never any environmentally synchronized breeding season. By the time they migrated into more seasonal environments (eg, ice age europe), they had probably developed the skills (hunting mammoths etc) to override the seasonal cutoffs in resources that might have led to the evolution of a seasonal breeding cycle.  

I think we've been non-seasonal, like most tropical animals, for all of our evolutionary history.