Half-Siblings in Human Evolutionary History

Synonyms

One parent’s offspring whose other parents are different

Definition

Half-siblings are either sired by the same father (paternal half-siblings) or born by the same mother (maternal half-siblings), but not both.

Introduction

In altricial species, such as primates, maternal half-siblings and full-siblings live usually in the proximity of each other and are raised up by the same mother. In contrast, the relation between paternal half-siblings is much less tight. The outcome of this difference in terms of social interactions, such as cooperation, aggression, and agonistic behavior, has been studied extensively in many mammalian species. Most research studying human behavioral ecology and the role of kin network, however, focused on full-siblings only. The current knowledge about the mating behavior of Homo sapiens and extinct Homospecies suggests that this form of relatedness had always been present during the evolutionary history of the genus. Therefore, studying the...