Lynn Shea mentions the range of normal -- yes indeed. I am just under halfway through Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's relatively new book MOTHER NATURE, which was mentioned on Lactnet a few months ago when it was first published. Among many interesting things in it is a discussion of the range of conditions in different foraging cultures (which are taken as similar to paleolithic human cultures), and the very different weaning and child-spacing patterns that are associated with those different economic and climatic and social conditions. Her whole emphasis throughout is that nature and culture are not so easily divisible -- that cultural conditions and biological ones are a mutual feedback loop. (Early on she repeats a joke that the human populations with the latest known average weaning ages are the !Kung San and women anthropologists - among which she includes herself, naturally. It made me want to tell her she should add, "and subscribers to Lactnet!") Elisheva Urbas who has no financial interest in this book, only intellectual interest :) NYC *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html