>This caught my eye - are we talking true neoteny here, or our switch of
>wolves (or cats or whatever) over to our society as juvenilized helpers?
>Hope it is not too off-topic, but I just studied neoteny and its possible
>effect on evolution, and find it most interesting.
>
>Holly

Holly,

Neanderthin's definition of neoteny, which I was using in my post, is "the
retention of juvenile traits into adulthood", and in the book it referred
both to our ancestors and to wolves. I just looked in the dictionary and,
interestingly, there is another definition as well as the one used in
Neanderthin: the development of adult features in the juvenile. I'm not sure
if the changes discussed on this list and in the book, which are attributed
to agricultural diets, such as earlier menstruation in adolescent girls,
would qualify as neoteny under that definition. If that's the case, then
natural selection led to neoteny, definition 1, and dietary changes led to
neoteny, definition 2.

Sam