Foraging in the Past

Archaeological Studies of Hunter-Gatherer Diversity

Lemke

• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781607327738
• eBook ISBN: 9781607327745
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Archéologie

The label "hunter-gatherer" covers an extremely diverse range of societies and behaviors, yet most of what is known is provided by ethnographic and historical data that cannot be used to interpret prehistory. Foraging in the Past takes an explicitly archaeological approach to the potential of the archaeological record to document the variability and time depth of hunter-gatherers.
 
Well-established and young scholars present new prehistoric data and describe new methods and theories to investigate ancient forager lifeways and document hunter-gatherer variability across the globe. The authors use relationships established by cross-cultural data as a background for examining the empirical patterns of prehistory. Covering underwater sites in North America, the peaks of the Andes, Asian rainforests, and beyond, chapters are data rich, methodologically sound, and theoretically nuanced, effectively exploring the latest evidence for behavioral diversity in the fundamental process of hunting and gathering.
 
Foraging in the Past establishes how hunter-gatherers can be considered archaeologically, extending beyond the reach of ethnographers and historians to argue that only through archaeological research can the full range of hunter-gatherer variability be documented. Presenting a comprehensive and integrated approach to forager diversity in the past, the volume will be of significance to both students and scholars working with or teaching about hunter-gatherers.
 
Contributors: Nicholas J. Conard, Raven Garvey, Keiko Kitagawa, John Krigbaum, Petra Krönneck, Steven Kuhn, Julia Lee-Thorp, Peter Mitchell, Katherine Moore, Susanne C. Münzel, Kurt Rademaker, Patrick Roberts, Britt Starkovich, Brian A. Stewart, Mary Stiner
 

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Hunter-Gatherers and Archaeology

Ashley K. Lemke

DOI: 10.5876/9781607327745.c001

Hunter-gatherer societies have played a pivotal role in anthropology as a discipline. Early anthropologists including Émile Durkheim, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, Julian Steward, and Claude Lévi-Strauss used hunter-gatherer data to address broad anthropological topics such as kinship, division of labor, and the origins of religion (Kelly 2013). In fact, hunter-gatherers have been so foundational to anthropology that the entire history of the discipline could be viewed in terms of hunter-gatherer ethnography (Yengoyan 1979). Foragers can be seen as the quintessential topic of anthropology (Bettinger et al. 2015). After more than a century of study, hunter-gatherer societies are now well documented and known to be extremely diverse.

Given the central role of hunter-gatherers in creating foundational theories and principles of anthropology, ethnographic studies of these living groups were common. Thus, hunter-gatherer diversity is primarily known from ethnographic data. These ethnographic cases, however, provide only a small sample of the extensive variability in hunter-gatherer adaptations.

The central problem facing anthropologists interested in documenting the entire range of human behavior, and archaeologists interested in hunter-gatherer diversity in the past, is that most of our pictures of prehistoric hunter-gatherers are based on ethnographic analogy rather than archaeological evidence. Given the tremendous range of variability present among ethnographic foragers explored by Robert Kelly (1995, 2013), Lewis Binford (e.g., 2001), and others, such diversity must have been even greater in the past when foraging was the most common (or only) mode of subsistence. Over the course of foraging lifeways on the planet, there are vast amounts of time and space available to the archaeologist that are not represented in the ethnographic record. Therefore, in contrast to ethnography, archaeology has access to a greater range of hunter-gatherer phenomena in the recent and remote past. Robert Kelly (1995, 2013) has highlighted diversity in the ethnographic record, has championed human behavioral ecology as a method for understanding foraging adaptations, and has identified the problem of trying to explore and appreciate diversity among hunter-gatherers in the past.

The goal of this book is to address this problem explicitly—to discuss how to explore diversity in the past—and essentially move the Foraging Spectrum, Robert Kelly’s seminal work, back in time. In order to take the first steps toward recognizing and documenting forager variability in prehistory, this volume covers a wide range of time and space as well as theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. It is our belief that such a diverse theoretical and methodological toolkit is essential for exploring variability in past human behavior.

Normative Views of Hunter-Gatherers in Anthropology

The term hunter-gatherer most often refers to a mode of subsistence, but disparate cultures fitting these economic criteria have traditionally been grouped together despite variation in demography, mobility, foraging behavior, and sociopolitical organization. Because of this, there is considerable debate concerning who actually is a hunter-gatherer (Ames 2004). There are two primary definitions. The first is economic, referring to people without domesticated plants and animals (except dogs) and incorporates a number of different social forms (Kelly 1995, 2013). The second is social, referring to band societies or small groups who are egalitarian, with flexible membership, and with differences among individuals based primarily on age, gender, and charisma. This social definition encompasses a variety of economies (Lee 1992). The existence of two distinct definitions makes of hunter-gatherers a broad analytical category that masks significant sociocultural and economic variability. Anthropological archaeologists continue to struggle with this variability.

Contemporary, historic, and ethnographic hunter-gatherers are extremely diverse in all aspects of life—from economy, to social organization, kinship, and ritual (e.g., Ames 2004; Binford 2001; Kelly 1995, 2013; Kent 1996; Panter-Brick, Layton, and Rowley-Conwy 2001). Variability was presumably even greater in the past. However, due to the wealth of ethnographic data, and the inherent problems of poor preservation of hunter-gatherer remains in the archaeological record, the issue remains: most reconstructions of prehistoric hunter-gatherers conform to a single normative view:

We have built up remarkably detailed pictures of early human society complete with family bands of twenty-five people who share food, trace kin relations bilaterally, reside bilocally, and eat a generalized diet with women gathering plant food and men hunting . . . But this detailed picture comes not from archaeological evidence as much as from ethnographic analogy . . . If prehistoric hunter-gatherers all look the same, it is because we supposed them to be that way from the outset. (Kelly 1995:339, emphasis added)

The central problem concerning prehistoric hunter-gatherer archaeology is surpassing the limited view of foragers drawn from the ethnographic record and the resulting normative characterization of simple, highly mobile, acephalous bands with limited property. Ethnographic cases that do not fit this model are referred to as “complex” hunter-gatherers, as they are influenced by historical contingency or a unique resource suite. These restricted views of forager lifeways are largely due to inherent biases in the ethnographic record. The picture drawn from ethnographic data is incomplete, limited, and (out of necessity) considers only modern humans.

Limitations of the Ethnographic Record

The ethnographic record of foraging societies is an incomplete and biased sample, as certain groups have been overrepresented and others underrepresented, and yet others are left out of more general hunter-gatherer studies completely. As different forager groups wax and wane in popularity, their particular behaviors and view of the world have become the general model of hunter-gatherers (Kelly 1995). Historically, Kalahari groups, Arctic groups (specifically the Nunamiut), and more recently the Hadza, have come to dominate archaeological interpretations of foragers. This handful of ethnographic cases has been overrepresented in models of hunter-gatherers and used to characterize foraging style as egalitarian, highly mobile, and with few material wants. Other ethnographic groups have been historically underrepresented, such as South American foragers living in tropical rainforests. While these groups are generally thought to be too reliant on cultivation to be true foragers (Politis 2015), archaeological evidence demonstrates that hunter-gatherers have a long prehistory of occupying similar environments (Roberts et al., chapter 5, this volume).

Furthermore, other societies have been left out of more general studies and are relegated to other categories, such as “complex” hunter-gatherers. In many classic anthropological works concerning foragers, certain ethnographic cases that did not conform to general models were left out. For example, Service (1966) did not include Native Americans of the Northwest Coast in The Hunters, and many other societies—including the Tlingit and Nootka, the Calusa of Florida, and the horse-riding groups of Native Americans from the Great Plains—were excluded from Man the Hunter (1968). The rationale behind these analytical choices was that these were extreme cases of either environment (e.g., concentrated resources in both time and space, such as salmon runs on the Pacific Coast) or historical contingency (e.g., the importation of Spanish colonial horses) (see Garvey and Bettinger 2014 on unique local circumstances versus diffusion). Historical contingency is often linked to contact with state societies, but it must be stressed that all ethnographic foragers were in contact with states, and all ethnographic foragers were subject to their own unique historical contingencies. Significantly, archaeological evidence has demonstrated that many traits believed to be the result of culture exchange, such as social complexity, social inequality, and complex economies, in fact predate colonial contact (e.g., Prentiss et al. 2007; Zedeño et al. 2014). These traits are perhaps more characteristic of prehistoric hunter-gatherers than traditionally assumed (Lemke 2016).

In addition to these biases, ethnographic data are inherently limited by the small amounts of both time and space in which ethnographers have been working with foraging groups. Historic ethnographic research with hunter-gatherers was often considered “salvage ethnography” as these cultures and economies were rapidly changing (see the frontispiece from Man the Hunter, Lee and DeVore 1968). The time and space available to ethnographers is particularly narrow when compared to the broad stretches available in the archaeological record. Not only were prehistoric foraging populations more numerous but over the great stretch of time when humans were hunting and gathering, massive environmental changes took place. Among the most significant are global fluctuations in both ice sheets and sea level, which submerged and reexposed large portions of the prehistoric landscape over the last 2 million years. These coastlines, particularly on the continental shelf and in many inland lakes and karstic features, were likely some of the most attractive habitats for hunter-gatherers. These sites, and the evidence of prehistoric foraging lifeways they preserve, are now underwater and are only available through submerged archaeological research (see Lemke, chapter 3, this volume). These processes in the past resulted in unique environments that have no modern analog, and it is likely that such environments supported novel hunter-gatherer lifeways unlike any known from the ethnographic record.

Finally, the ethnographic record is limited to biologically and culturally modern humans. Prior to modern human culture, our early human ancestors, such as Neanderthals, Homo erectus, and Australopithecines were likely very different kinds of hunter-gatherers (see Kitagawa et al., chapter 7, this volume; Kuhn and Stiner 2001, chapter 8, this volume; Roberts et al., chapter 5, this volume).

Significantly, even within the biased and limited ethnographic record, diversity is clear. Ethnographic data demonstrate that even within small regions, such as the Kalahari Desert or Southeast Asia, a variety of hunter-gatherer lifeways are observed (e.g., Kelly 2013; Kusimba 2005; Stewart and Mitchell, chapter 6, this volume). Some hunter-gatherer groups are highly mobile, others more sedentary, many are band societies whereas others have different social systems. Hunted animals are sometimes a large part of the diet in some geographic regions, such as the Arctic, and gathering plant foods and smaller animals are more important in other areas, or at different times of year. In certain groups, hunting is done exclusively by men, while in others women do the hunting, (e.g., Bird and Bird 2008; Kelly 2013). Given this diversity in the ethnographic record with limited time and space parameters, it can be expected that variability in the past was much greater, and certainly extends beyond the limited view of foragers still pervasive in anthropology. With a limited range of groups and adaptations, the ethnographic present is just the tip of the iceberg; the archaeological record preserves the rest of the iceberg.

Enter Archaeology

In marked contrast to the ethnographic record, archaeology has access to a broader range of contexts, including time, space, and environments, and likewise a greater range of hunter-gatherer lifeways. Archaeology’s greatest contribution to general anthropology is the vast time scale at its disposal (Jochim 1991; Marcus 2008). It is the only method available for anthropologists to view all the variable aspects of behavior in both space and time, from the individual to groups, from the small settlements to large regions, from single events to patterns over millennia (Wobst 1978:307)—and to see evidence of behaviors that predates colonial contact. For these reasons, archaeologists should not be limited by the range of behaviors known from the ethnographic record and the resulting biased characterization of hunter-gatherers. Furthermore, archaeology is the approach best suited for investigating forager diversity since it is the only discipline that explicitly and directly deals with prehistoric hunter-gatherers and the remnants of their actual behavior.

Archaeologists are in an ideal position to push forager theory forward. To date, the primary goal for anthropologists concerning hunter-gatherers has been to characterize the 99 percent of human history when foraging lifeways were dominant; while this 99 percent still represents a significant stage in human prehistory, it is far from homogeneous (Kuhn and Stiner, chapter 8, this volume). The long-term perspective available to archaeologists provides a window into changing patterns of human behavior, and an incomplete but accurate record of hunter-gatherer diversity and adaptations. In this way, archaeology will always serve as the definitive test for hunter-gatherer variability.

Given the vast range of time, space, and unique environments at its disposal, the archaeological record provides evidence of novel forms of social and economic organization that are only available in the deep past. The creative and challenging role for archaeologists is to produce new portraits of hunter-gatherer diversity in the past, de novo, drawing on but not reproducing the ethnographic present.

Recognizing Variability in the Past

While contemporary studies of hunter-gatherers acknowledge that ethnographic hunter-gatherers are not living a prehistoric lifestyle, and that forager lifeways are extremely diverse (e.g., Ames 2004; Binford 2001; Kent 1996; Panter-Brick, Layton, and Rowley-Conwy 2001), documenting diversity within prehistoric foraging societies remains elusive. How do arc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Hunter-Gatherers and Archaeology
• 2. Cultural Transmission and Sources of Diversity: A Comparison of Temperate Maritime Foragers of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres
• 3. Underwater Archaeology and the Archaeo-Ethnology of Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers: Examining the Role of Ethnography in Prehistoric Forager Research beneath the North American Great Lakes
• 4. Variation in the Occupation Intensity of Early Forager Sites of the Andean Puna: Implications for Settlement and Adaptation
• 5. Hunting and Gathering in Prehistoric Rainforests: Insights from Stable Isotope Analysis
• 6. Beyond the Shadow of a Desert: Aquatic Resource Intensification on the Roof of Southern Africa
• 7. Explaining Diachronic Trends in Paleolithic Subsistence in Central Europe
• 8. The Antiquity of Hunter-Gatherers Revisited
• List of Contributors
• Index