At the beginning of this volume three questions were posed concerning the ways in which societies protect themselves against scarcity: (1) How do societies buffer themselves against periodic variation in food availability? (2) How do these coping activities influence other aspects of cultural organisation? (3) To what extent can coping strategies provide the impetus for social change? We can now return to these questions in the light of the varied cases that have been presented.

How do societies buffer themselves against periodic variation in food availability?

In essence, buffering uses selected aspects of variability to dampen the effects of others – exploiting resource heterogeneity through diversification, spatial variability through mobility and exchange, and temporal variability through storage. The particular mix of responses employed, however, is influenced both by the nature and structure of variability and by a host of enabling and constraining cultural factors. So, for example, when considering storage as a buffering mechanism for high-latitude hunter–gatherers, Rowley-Conwy and Zvelebil emphasise the ecological and technological preconditions while Minc and Smith highlight the social and organisational requirements of such mass capture and storage systems.

Collectively, the examples presented in this volume suggest a series of basic relationships that characterise risk-buffering systems. In particular, they emphasise regularities relating to scale and to the way specific buffering activities are combined to form coherent coping strategies.