'Culture means nothing to me’: Thoughts on nature/culture in narratives of ‘full-term’ breastfeeding.

What anthropologists say: Determining what is a natural age of weaning

for human beings raises some problems. Human beings’ ideas about when

and how to wean are often determined by culture, not necessarily by what is

best or natural for babies and mothers. Anthropologists who have studied

weaning have found a great variety in weaning ages, from birth (in

much of the United States and Western Society in general) to age seven

or eight in other cultures… Dr Dettwyler has used the example of

primates to try to determine a natural weaning age for humans, since

‘gorillas and chimpanzees share more then ninety-eight percent of their

genes with humans’ but are lacking the cultural biases of humans.