Hai||om children mistrust, but do not deceive, peers with opposing self-interests.

During their preschool years, children from urban, Western populations increasingly use deception and mistrust to regulate social interactions with others who have opposing interests. The ontogeny of these behaviors in rural, non-Western populations remains understudied. This study assessed deception and mistrust within peer interactions among 4- to 8-year-old Hai||om children from rural Namibia (N = 64). Participants engaged in a dyadic game in which their self-interests were either aligned (cooperation condition) or opposed (competition condition) to those of their coplayers. Similar to previous evidence taken from Western participants, children mistrusted their coplayers during competition, but not during cooperation. Rates of actual deception were low in both conditions, which contrasts previous findings among Western populations. On an individual level, those children who deceived were also more likely to mistrust their peers. These results reveal novel insights on the ontogenetic primacy of mistrust over deception in young children's peer interactions in a rural, non-Western community.

Cross-cultural variation in how much, but not whether, children overimitate.

Children from Western industrialized populations tend to copy actions modeled by an adult with high fidelity even if these actions are functionally irrelevant. This so-called overimitation has been argued to be an important driver of cumulative cultural learning. However, cross-cultural and developmental evidence on overimitation is controversial, likely due to diverging task demands regarding children's attention and memory capabilities. Here, children from a recent hunter-gatherer population (Hai||om in Namibia) were compared with urban Western children (Germany) using an overimitation procedure with minimal cognitive task demands. Although the proportion of children engaging in any overimitation was similar across the two populations, German overimitators copied irrelevant actions more persistently across tasks. These results suggest that the influence of culture on children's overimitation may be one of degree, not kind.

Crucial Contributions : A Biocultural Study of Grandmothering During the Perinatal Period.

Maternal grandmothers play a key role in allomaternal care, directly caring for and provisioning their grandchildren as well as helping their daughters with household chores and productive labor. Previous studies have investigated these contributions across a broad time period, from infancy through toddlerhood. Here, we extend and refine the grandmothering literature to investigate the perinatal period as a critical window for grandmaternal contributions. We propose that mother-daughter co-residence during this period affords targeted grandmaternal effort during a period of heightened vulnerability and appreciable impact. We conducted two focus groups and 37 semi-structured interviews with Himba women. Interviews focused on experiences from their first and, if applicable, their most recent birth and included information on social support, domains of teaching and learning, and infant feeding practices. Our qualitative findings reveal three domains in which grandmothers contribute: learning to mother, breastfeeding support, and postnatal health and well-being. We show that informational, emotional, and instrumental support provided to new mothers and their neonates during the perinatal period can aid in the establishment of the mother-infant bond, buffer maternal energy balance, and improve nutritional outcomes for infants. These findings demonstrate that the role of grandmother can be crucial, even when alloparenting is common and breastfeeding is frequent and highly visible. Situated within the broader anthropological and clinical literature, these findings substantiate the claim that humans have evolved in an adaptive sociocultural perinatal complex in which grandmothers provide significant contributions to the health and well-being of their reproductive-age daughters and grandchildren.

The Impacts of Conservation and Militarization on Indigenous Peoples : A Southern African San Perspective.

There has been a long-standing debate about the roles of San in the militaries of southern Africa and the prevalence of violence among the Ju/'hoansi and other San people. The evolutionary anthropology and social anthropological debates over the contexts in which violence and warfare occurs among hunters and gatherers are considered, as is the "tribal zone theory" of warfare between states and indigenous people. This paper assesses the issues that arise from these discussions, drawing on data from San in Angola, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe. Utilizing cases of how San have been affected by military forces and wildlife conservation agencies in what became protected areas in southern Africa, this article shows that indigenous peoples have been treated differentially by state and nongovernmental organizations involved in anti-poaching, shoot-to-kill, and forced resettlement policies. Particular emphasis is placed on the !Xun and Khwe San of southern Angola and northern Namibia and the Tshwa San of western Zimbabwe and northern Botswana, who have been impacted by militarization and coercive conservation efforts since the late nineteenth century. Principal conclusions are that conservation and militarization efforts have led to a reduction in land and resources available to indigenous people, higher levels of poverty, increased socioeconomic stratification, and lower levels of physical well-being. San have responded to these trends by engaging in social activism, forming community-based institutions, and pursuing legal actions aimed at obtaining human rights and equitable treatment.

Tuberculosis knowledge, misconceptions/myths in adults: findings from Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia and Zambia Demographic Health Surveys (2013-2016).

OBJECTIVE: To determine TB knowledge and misconceptions/myths amongst HIV positive and negative adults using Demographic Health Survey data from Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia and Zambia. RESULTS: Overall 97% (n = 58,107) of both male and female respondents irrespective of their HIV status had heard of tuberculosis out of whom 82.6% knew that it can be cured. Knowledge that TB is spread in air when coughing or sneezing was 73.8%. Significantly higher proportions of HIV positive men and women than their HIV negative counterparts, had ever heard about TB, knew that it is transmitted through air when coughing and sneezing and also that it can be cured. However interestingly, significantly higher proportions of HIV positive men and women, than their HIV negative counterparts, had the misconception that TB is spread through sharing utensils or would overall say they did not know how it is spread. TB knowledge was significantly higher among individuals who are less than 26 years of age compared to those who were older.

Effects of Culture and the Urban Environment on the Development of the Ebbinghaus Illusion.

The development of visual context effects in the Ebbinghaus illusion in the United Kingdom and in remote and urban Namibians (UN) was investigated (N = 336). Remote traditional Himba children showed no illusion up until 9-10 years, whereas UK children showed a robust illusion from 7 to 8 years of age. Greater illusion in UK than in traditional Himba children was stable from 9 to 10 years to adulthood. A lesser illusion was seen in remote traditional Himba children than in UN children growing up in the nearest town to the traditional Himba villages across age groups. We conclude that cross-cultural differences in perceptual biases to process visual context emerge in early childhood and are influenced by the urban environment.

Alterations of cortisol homeostasis may link changes of the sociocultural environment to an increased diabetes and metabolic risk in developing countries: a prospective diagnostic study performed in cooperation with the Ovahimba people of the Kunene region/northwestern Namibia.

CONTEXT: Diabetes mellitus is increasingly affecting Africa. OBJECTIVE: Urbanization of the Ovahimba people in Namibia is associated with an increased prevalence of disorders of glucose metabolism, and may thus be attributed to changes of cortisol homeostasis. DESIGN: A prospective, cross-sectional, diagnostic study was applied. SETTING: The study was conducted in the field. Location of the Diabetes Epidemic: Africa and Namibia. PARTICIPANTS: Ovahimba people: group 1 "urban" n = 60, 42 females, 46.3 ± 11.3 years (town); group 2 "rural" n = 63, 44 females, 51.1 ± 12.0 years (seminomadic). INTERVENTIONS: oGTT, sunrise and sunset saliva cortisol, metabolic parameters, questionnaire. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: The prevalence of disorders of glucose metabolism (DM, IGT, IFT). RESULTS: The prevalence of disorders of glucose metabolism differed significantly: urban group n = 17(28.3%) vs rural group n = 8(12.7%) (P = 0.04). The saliva cortisol concentrations also differed significantly: sunrise 0.34 ± 0.18 vs 0.12 ± 0.15 µg/dL, sunset 0.18 ± 0.20 vs 0.07 ± 0.09 µg/dL, area under the curve 6.16 ± 3.48 vs 2.28 ± 2.56 µg/dL * 24 h (all P < 0.001). Further metabolic parameters were unfavorably changed in the urban group: hip circumference (P < 0.001), waist circumference (P < 0.001), body mass index (P = 0.014), systolic BP at rest (P < 0.001), diastolic BP at rest (P = 0.002), systolic BP after exercise (P < 0.001), heart rate after exercise (P = 0.007), fasting glucose (P < 0.001), 2-h-glucose by OGTT (P = 0.002), triglycerides (P = 0.04), HDL-cholesterol (P = 0.014), prevalence of the metabolic syndrome (P < 0.001). Physical activity was higher in the rural group, and intake of fast food and sweets were higher in the urban group. CONCLUSIONS: Urbanization of the Ovahimba people is associated with an increasing prevalence of disorders of glucose metabolism and other unfavorable metabolic parameters. Besides changes of lifestyle, this may be attributed to an increased cortisol exposure of the Ovahimba people living in an urban environment.

Where culture takes hold: "overimitation" and its flexible deployment in Western, Aboriginal, and Bushmen children.

Children often "overimitate," comprehensively copying others' actions despite manifest perceptual cues to their causal ineffectuality. The inflexibility of this behavior renders its adaptive significance difficult to apprehend. This study explored the boundaries of overimitation in 3- to 6-year-old children of three distinct cultures: Westernized, urban Australians (N = 64 in Experiment 1; N = 19 in Experiment 2) and remote communities of South African Bushmen (N = 64) and Australian Aborigines (N = 19). Children overimitated at high frequency in all communities and generalized what they had learned about techniques and object affordances from one object to another. Overimitation thus provides a powerful means of acquiring and flexibly deploying cultural knowledge. The potency of such social learning was also documented compared to opportunities for exploration and practice.

Urbanization decreases attentional engagement.

Exposure to the urban environment has been shown dramatically to increase the tendency to process contextual information. To further our understanding of this effect of urbanization, we compared performance on a local-selection task of a remote people, the Himba, living traditionally or relocated to town. We showed that (a) spatial attention was defocused in urbanized Himba but focused in traditional Himba (Experiment 1), despite urbanized Himba performing better on a working memory task (Experiment 3); (b) imposing a cognitive load made attention as defocused in traditional as in urbanized Himba (Experiment 2); and (c) using engaging stimuli/tasks made attention as focused in urbanized Himba, and British, as in traditional Himba (Experiments 4 and 5). We propose that urban environments prioritize exploration at the expense of attentional engagement and cognitive control of attentional selection.

Are preferences for legs length universal? Data from a semi-nomadic Himba population from Namibia.

Leg-to-body ratio (LBR) is one of the morphological traits that influences a person's attractiveness. To date, studies confirming that hypothesis have been conducted mainly in Western cultures. They have shown that the average or slightly higher-than-the-average LBR is perceived to be attractive in women. In the case of men, results were more ambiguous; however generally shorter or similar LBRs compared to females were attractive. Here, data on LBR preferences of a traditional, semi-nomad ethnic group (i.e., the Himba of northern Namibia, n = 81) are reported. Also in Himba people LBR influences a person's attractiveness. Similar to Western societies, extremely high and low LBRs were unattractive. However, contrary to previous findings, Himba preferred women of relatively low LBR and men of relatively high LBR.

Child fostering chains among Ovambo families in Namibia, Southern Africa.

Childcare across sub-Saharan Africa is often socially distributed among adults, with care by the biological mother being one of several options available for children. Children typically move within and outside of large extended kin networks. Based on an ethnographic study of four Ovambo families in Namibia, this article seeks to understand the cultural logic of fostering. Several themes that emerged from the study are discussed here, including the varied motivations of fostering, the cultural scripts of equality, and the rules of reciprocity in exchange, which are involved. Education shapes a mother's choices of care-giving and creates both a supply of children and a demand on households. The implications for HIV/AIDS orphans are discussed.

CYP1A2 polymorphism (C > A at position -163) in Ovambos, Koreans and Mongolians.

Cytochrome P450 1A2 (CYP1A2) plays an important role in metabolizing drugs and xenobiotics, and is a possible participant in the development of several human diseases. Recent studies have shown that genetic polymorphism of -163 C > A single nucleotide mutation of CYP1A2 increases the risk of myocardial infarction and modulates CYP1A2 activity. In this study, we investigated the frequency of the -163 C > A mutation in Ovambos (n = 177), Koreans (n = 250) and Mongolians (n = 153) and compared our results with other studies. Detection of this single nucleotide polymorphism was by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis (PCR-RFLP). The frequencies of mutation (CYP1A2*-163A) in the Ovambos, Koreans and Mongolians were 0.46, 0.32 and 0.21, respectively. Ovambos showed a relatively higher frequency of mutation, similar to that of Tanzanians, while the Mongolians showed the lowest frequency of all study groups, including those from previous studies. This study is the first to investigate the distribution of the CYP1A2 (-163 C > A single nucleotide polymorphism) mutant allele in Ovambo, Korean and Mongolian populations.

CYP2A6 polymorphism reveals differences in Japan and the existence of a specific variant in Ovambo and Turk populations.

CYP2A6 is a polymorphic enzyme, and CYP2A6 genotype has been shown to be associated with smoking habits and lung cancer. We investigated CYP2A6 polymorphism in Japanese from four different geographic areas of Japan and in the Ovambo and Turk populations. Using two polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphisms (PCR-RFLPs), we identified the functionally important variants of CYP2A6: *1A, *1B, *1F, *1G, *4A, and *4D. In the Japanese population the highest frequencies of the CYP2A6*1A allele were observed in subjects from the Fukuoka (Kyushu Island) and Ehime (Shikoku Island) prefectures, whereas subjects in Shimane and Tottori (both located on the Japan Sea side of Honshu Island) showed the highest frequencies of the CYP2A6*1B allele. In the Tottori and Shimane groups no subject was homozygous for the CYP2A6*4A allele, a whole gene deletion type that is prevalent among Asians. In the Ovambo and Turk populations the CYP2A6*1A allele was predominant. Furthermore, two alleles undetected in the Japanese were observed in these latter two ethnic groups: CYP2A6*1G was found solely in the Ovambos, and CYP2A6*1F was found solely in the Turks. The present study is the first to show interprefecture differences in CYP2A6 polymorphism in Japanese who live in relatively close but distinct geographic areas; this is also the first study to evaluate CYP2A6 variations among these Japanese and the Ovambo and Turk populations. The distribution results of these alleles could help to define the true significance of CYP2A6 polymorphism as a genetic susceptibility marker in worldwide populations.

Seroresponses to virus-like particles of human papillomavirus types 16, 18, 31, 33, and 45 in San people of Southern Africa.

Virus-like particles (VLPs) of the high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) types 16, 18, 31, 33, and 45 were used as antigen in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to determine the prevalence of serum IgG in a group of San people originally from Namibia, now residing in South Africa. The San children had low seroprevalence to all VLP types, but 26/115 (22.6%) of the children were seropositive to at least 1 VLP type. Among the adults, seroprevalence was significantly higher. The seroprevalence of antibodies in 101 San women to VLP-16 was 16.8%, VLP-18 18.8%, VLP-31 12.9%, VLP-33 17.8%, and VLP-45 22.8%. Five of the 11 men were seropositive: 2 for VLP-31, 1 for VLP-18, 1 for VLP-33, and 1 for VLP-45. Seroreactivity appeared to be type specific, except possibly to VLP-18 and -45. Of the adults, 50.5% were seropositive to at least 1 VLP type and 24.8% were seropositive to >1 VLP type. From this study, it is concluded that the San people are exposed to HPV-16, -18, -31, -33, and -45, with antibodies to VLP-45 being the most prevalent.