Reproductive value (RV) is basically a measure of the amount

File: rv.png (27KB, 747x542px)

27KB, 747x542px

Reproductive value (RV) is basically a measure of the amount of offspring a female of a given age can be expected to have over the remainder of her life. By mathematical definition this rises with age up to the beginning of a female's reproductive lifespan, as the probability of her dying before she starts reproducing decreases, and then goes into decline as she uses up her fertile years.

The values in the graph were taken from Amazonian populations which make fairly good models of prehistoric people. In these populations the average age of a girl's first pregnancy is about 17 which explains why the graph line peaks there. The best age for a man to acquire a girl as a wife would be just before that as she approaches the beginning of her reproductive lifespan. Obviously a man needs to acquire a girl before the peak and not after it when she's already started reproducing with another man in the tribe.

Maybe this is the reason girls grow eye-catching perky boobs at this age. They signal that she's approaching reproductive age.

Can anybody here with expertise in maths or evolutionary biology comment?