Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T13:23:17.072Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

SCALING THE SIZE, STRUCTURE, AND DYNAMICS OF RESIDENTIALLY MOBILE HUNTER-GATHERER CAMPS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2018

Marcus J. Hamilton ,
Briggs Buchanan  and
Robert S. Walker
Marcus J. Hamilton*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA; and Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA
Briggs Buchanan
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Harwell Hall, University of Tulsa, 800 South Tucker Drive, Tulsa, OK 74104, USA
Robert S. Walker
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Swallow Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
*
([email protected], corresponding author)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Short-term hunter-gatherer residential camps have been a central feature of human settlement patterns and social structure for most of human evolutionary history. Recent analyses of ethnohistoric hunter-gatherer data show that across different environments, the average size of hunter-gatherer bands is remarkably constant and that bands are commonly formed by a small number of coresident families. Using ethnoarchaeological data, we examine the relationship between the physical infrastructure of camps and their social organization. We compiled a dataset of 263 ethnoarchaeologically observed hunter-gatherer camps from 13 studies in the literature. We focus on both the scale of camps, or their average size, structure, and composition, and the dynamics that governed their variation. Using a combination of inferential statistics and linear models, we show that the physical infrastructure of camps, measured by the number of household features, reflects the internal social organization of hunter-gatherer bands. Using scaling analyses, we then show that the variation among individual camps is related to a predictable set of dynamics between camp area, infrastructure, the number of occupants, and residence time. Moreover, the scale and dynamics that set the statistical variance in camp sizes are similar across different environments and have important implications for reconstructing prehistoric hunter-gatherer social organization and behavior from the archaeological record.

Los campamentos residenciales a corto plazo de cazadores-recolectores han sido un aspecto central de los patrones de asentamiento y de la estructura social durante la mayoría de la historia evolutiva humana. Análisis recientes de datos sobre cazadores-recolectores etnohistóricos muestran que el tamaño promedio de los grupos es notablemente constante en diferentes entornos ambientales. También se muestra que estos grupos están formados por un número reducido de familias con la misma residencia. Por medio de datos etnoarqueológicos, examinamos la relación entre la infraestructura física de los campamentos y su organización social. Compilamos datos etnoarqueológicos acerca de 263 campamentos de cazadores-recolectores usando información procedente de 13 estudios previos. Nos enfocamos en la escala de estos campamentos, o su tamaño, estructura y composición, así como en las dinámicas que determinan la variación entre ellos. Usando una combinación de estadísticas inferenciales y modelos lineares, demostramos que la infraestructura física de los campamentos, indicada por el número de rasgos domésticos, refleja la organización social interna de los grupos de cazadores-recolectores. Por medio de análisis de escalamiento demostramos que la variación entre campamentos individuales se relaciona a un conjunto previsible de dinámicas entre el área del campamento, la infraestructura, el número de ocupantes y el plazo de residencia. Además, la escala y las dinámicas que determinan la varianza estadística de los tamaños de los campamentos son semejantes en ambientes diferentes y tienen implicaciones para reconstruir la organización social de los grupos de cazadores-recolectores prehistóricos con base en el registro arqueológico.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 4 , October 2018 , pp. 701 - 720
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by the Society for American Archaeology 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Balikci, Asen 1970 The Netsilik Eskimo. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights, Illinois.Google Scholar
Barnard, Alan 1992 Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Berndt, Ronald M., and Berndt, Catherine H. 1988 The World of the First Australians. Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, Australia.Google Scholar
Bettencourt, Luis M. A., Lobo, Jose, Helbing, Dirk, Kühnert, Christian, and West, Geoffrey B. 2007 Growth, Innovation, Scaling, and the Pace of Life in Cities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104:7301–7306.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1978 Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1982 The Archaeology of Place. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1:5–31.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1983 In Pursuit of the Past: Decoding the Archaeological Record. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1991 When the Going Gets Tough: Nunamuit Local Groups, Camping Patterns and Economic Organization. In Ethnoarchaeological Approaches to Mobile Campsites, edited by Gamble, Clive S. and Boismier, William A., pp. 25–138. International Monographs in Prehistory, Ann Arbor, Michigan.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 2001 Constructing Frames of Reference. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Birdsell, James B. 1968 Some Predictions for the Pleistocene Based on Equilibrium Systems among Recent Hunter-Gatherers. In Man the Hunter, edited by Lee, Richard B. and DeVore, Irven, pp. 229–240. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Boone, James L. 1991 Competition, Conflict, and Development of Social Hierarchies. In Evolutionary Ecology and Human Behavior, edited by Smith, Eric Alden and Winterhalder, Bruce, pp. 301–338. Aldine de Gruyter, New York.Google Scholar
Brody, Hugh 1981 Maps and Dreams: Indians and the British Columbia Frontier. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights, Illinois.Google Scholar
Burch, Ernest S. 2006 Social Life in Northwest Alaska: The Structure of Inupiaq Eskimo Nations. University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks.Google Scholar
Chapais, Bernard 2008 Primeval Kinship: How Pair-Bonding Gave Birth to Human Society. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Dunbar, Robin I. M. 2003 The Social Brain: Mind, Language, and Society in Evolutionary Perspective. Annual Review of Anthropology 32:163–181.Google Scholar
Dunbar, Robin I. M., and Shultz, Susanne 2007 Evolution in the Social Brain. Science 317:1344–1347.Google Scholar
Dyble, M., Salali, G. D., Chaudhary, N., Page, A., Smith, D., Thompson, J., Vinicius, L., Mace, R., and Migliano, A. B. 2015 Sex Equality Can Explain the Unique Social Structure of Hunter-Gatherer Bands. Science 348:796–798.Google Scholar
Freeman, Jacob 2016 The Socioecology of Territory Size and a “Work-Around” Hypothesis for the Adoption of Farming. PLoS ONE 11(7): e0158743.Google Scholar
Freeman, Jacob, Byers, David A., Robinson, Erick, and Kelly, Robert L. 2018 Culture Process and the Interpretation of Radiocarbon Data. Radiocarbon 60:453–467.Google Scholar
Gould, Richard A. (editor) 1978 Explorations in Ethnoarchaeology. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Greisser, Michael, Ma, Qi, Webber, Simone, Bowgen, Katharine, and Sumpter, David J. T. 2011 Understanding Animal Group-Size Distributions. PLoS ONE 6(8): e23438.Google Scholar
Grinnell, George B. 1972 The Cheyenne Indians: Their History and Ways of Life Vol. 1. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar
Grove, Matthew 2009 Hunter-Gatherer Movement Patterns: Causes and Constraints. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 282:222–233.Google Scholar
Grove, Matthew, Pearce, Eiluned, and Dunbar, Robin I. M. 2012 Fission-Fusion and the Evolution of Hominin Social Systems. Journal of Human Evolution 62:191–200.Google Scholar
Grueter, Cyril C., Chapais, Bernard, and Zinner, Dietmar 2012 Evolution of Multilevel Social Systems in Nonhuman Primates and Humans. International Journal of Primatology 33:1002–1037.Google Scholar
Gurven, Michael 2004 Reciprocal Altruism and Food Sharing Decisions among Hunter-Gatherers. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 56:366–380.Google Scholar
Gurven, Michael, Kaplan, Hillard, and Gutierrez, Maguin 2006 How Long Does It Take to Become a Proficient Hunter? Implications for the Evolution of Delayed Growth. Journal of Human Evolution 51:454–470.Google Scholar
Haas, W. Randall Jr., Klink, Cynthia J., Maggard, Greg J., and Aldenderfer, Mark S. 2015 Settlement-Size Scaling among Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems in the New World. PLoS ONE 10(11): e0140127.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Marcus J., Buchanan, Briggs, Huckell, Bruce B., Holliday, Vance T., Shackley, M. Steven, and Hill, Matthew E. 2013 Clovis Paleoecology and Lithic Technology in the Central Rio Grande Rift Region, New Mexico. American Antiquity 78:248–265.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Marcus J., Burger, Oscar, DeLong, John, Walker, Robert S., Moses, Melanie E., and Brown, James H. 2009 Population Stability, Cooperation, and the Invasibility of the Human Species. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 10630:12255–12260.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Marcus J., Lobo, Jose, Youn, Hyejin, Rupley, Eric, and West, Geoffrey B. 2016 The Ecological and Evolutionary Energetics of Hunter-Gatherer Residential Mobility. Evolutionary Anthropology 25:124–132.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Marcus J., Milne, Bruce T., Walker, Robert S., and Brown, James H. 2007 Nonlinear Scaling of Space Use in Human Hunter-Gatherers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 10411:4765–4769.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Marcus J., Milne, Bruce T., Walker, Robert S., Burger, Oscar, and Brown, James H. 2007 The Complex Structure of Hunter-Gatherer Social Networks. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 274:2195–2202.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Marcus J., and Walker, Robert S. 2018 A Stochastic Density-Dependent Model of the Long-Term Dynamics of Hunter-Gatherer Populations. Evolutionary Ecology Research 19:85–102.Google Scholar
Hassan, Fekri A. 1981 Demographic Archaeology. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Hassrick, Royal B. 1964 The Sioux: Life and Customs of a Warrior Society. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Henry, Jules 1964 Jungle People: A Kaingáng Tribe of the Highlands of Brazil. Vintage Books, New York.Google Scholar
Hill, Kim, and Kintigh, Keith 2009 Can Anthropologists Distinguish Good and Poor Hunters? Implications for Hunting Hypotheses, Sharing Conventions, and Cultural Transmission. Current Anthropology 50:369–378.Google Scholar
Hill, Kim R., Walker, Robert S., Božičević, Miran, Eder, James, Headland, Thomas, Hewlett, Barry, Hurtado, Ana Magdalena, Marlowe, Frank, Wiessner, Polly, and Wood, Brian 2011 Co-residence Patterns in Hunter-Gatherer Societies Show Unique Human Social Structure. Science 331:1286–1289.Google Scholar
Hill, Russell A., Bentley, R. Alex, and Dunbar, Robin I. M. 2008 Network Scaling Reveals Consistent Fractal Pattern in Hierarchical Mammalian Societies. Biology Letters 4:748–751.Google Scholar
Hooper, Paul L., Winking, Jeffrey, Gurven, Michael, and Kaplan, Hillard S. 2015 Inclusive Fitness and Differential Productivity across the Lifespan Determine Intergenerational Transfers in a Small-Scale Human Society. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 282: 20142808.Google Scholar
Johnson, Gary A. 1982 Organizational Structure and Scalar Stress. In Theory and Explanation in Archaeology, edited by Renfrew, Colin, Rowlands, Michael, and Segraves-Whallon, Barbara, pp. 389–421. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Hillard S., Hooper, Paul L., and Gurven, Michael 2009 The Evolutionary and Ecological Roots of Human Social Organization. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364:3289–3299.Google Scholar
Kelly, Robert L. 2013 The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Kent, Susan 1991 The Relationship between Mobility Strategies and Site Structure. In The Interpretation of Archaeological Spatial Patterning, edited by Kroll, Ellen M. and Price, T. Douglas, pp. 33–60. Plenum, New York.Google Scholar
LaBelle, Jason M. 2010 Reoccupation of Place: Late Paleoindian Land Use Strategies in the Central Plains. In Exploring Variability in Early Holocene Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways, edited by Hurst, Stance and Hofman, Jack L., pp. 37–72. Publications in Anthropology No. 25. University of Kansas, Lawrence.Google Scholar
Lancaster, Jane B., and Kaplan, Hillard 1992 Human Mating and Family Formation Strategies: The Effects of Variability among Males in Quality and the Allocation of Mating Effort and Parental Investment. In Topics in Primatology: Human Origins, Vol. 1, edited by Nishida, Toshisada, McGrew, William C., Marler, P., Pickford, M., and Van de Waal, Franz, pp. 21–33. University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo.Google Scholar
Lee, Richard B. 1979 The !Kung San: Men, Women and Work in a Foraging Society. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Lee, Richard B., and DeVore, Irven (editors) 1968 Man the Hunter. Aldine, London.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1969 The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Translated by Bell, James Harle, von Sturmer, John Richard, and Needham, Rodney. Beacon Press, Boston.Google Scholar
Lieberman, Philip 2013 The Unpredictable Species: What Makes Humans Unique. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Marlowe, Frank W. 2010 The Hadza: Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
McCall, Grant 2015 Beyond Modern Humans. Left Coast Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Opler, Morris E. 1941 An Apache Life-Way: The Economic, Social, and Religious Institutions of the Chiricahua Indians. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Google Scholar
Ortman, Scott G., Cabaniss, Andrew H. F., Sturm, Jennie O., and Bettencourt, Luis M. A. 2014 The Pre-history of Urban Scaling. PLoS ONE 9(2): e87902.Google Scholar
Ortman, Scott G., Cabaniss, Andrew H. F., Sturm, Jennie O., and Bettencourt, Luis M. A. 2015 Settlement Scaling and Increasing Returns in an Ancient Society. Science Advances 1(1): e1400066.Google Scholar
Ortman, Scott G., and Coffey, Grant D. 2017 Settlement Scaling in Middle-Range Societies. American Antiquity 82:662–682.Google Scholar
Ortman, Scott G., Davis, Kaitlyn E., Lobo, Jose, Smith, Michael E., Bettencourt, Luis M. A., and Trumbo, Aaron 2016 Settlement Scaling and Economic Change in the Central Andes. Journal of Archaeological Science 73:94–106.Google Scholar
Politis, Gustavo G. 2009 Nukak: Ethnoarchaeology of an Amazonian People. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California.Google Scholar
Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred R. 1930 The Social Organization of Australian Tribes. Oceania 1:206–246.Google Scholar
Robinson, Jennie 2014 The First Hunter-Gatherers. In The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers, edited by Cummings, Victoria, Jordan, Peter, and Zvelebil, Marek, pp. 177–190. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Rodseth, Lars 2012 From Bachelor Threat to Fraternal Security: Male Associations and Modular Organization in Human Societies. International Journal of Primatology 33:1194–1214.Google Scholar
Rodseth, Lars, Wrangham, Richard W., Harrigan, Alisa M., and Smuts, Barbara B. 1991 The Human Community as a Primate Society. Current Anthropology 323:221–254.Google Scholar
Steward, Julian H. 1936 The Economic and Social Basis of Primitive Bands. Bobbs-Merrill, Chicago.Google Scholar
Steward, Julian H. 1938 Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 120. US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Surovell, Todd A. 2009 Toward a Behavioral Ecology of Lithic Technology: Cases from Paleoindian Archaeology. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Ulijaszek, Stanley, Mann, Neil, and Elton, Sarah 2012 Evolving Human Nutrition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Walker, Robert S., Hill, Kim R., Kaplan, Hillard, and MacMillan, Garnett 2002 Age-Dependency in Hunting Ability among the Ache of Eastern Paraguay. Journal of Human Evolution 42:639–657.Google Scholar
Whallon, Robert, Lovis, William A., and Hitchcock, Robert K. (editors) 2011 Information and Its Role in Hunter-Gatherer Bands. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Wiessner, Polly W. 2014 Embers of Society: Firelight Talk among the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111:14027–14035.Google Scholar
Winterhalder, Bruce 1986 Diet Choice, Risk, and Food Sharing in a Stochastic Environment. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 5:369–392.Google Scholar
Wrangham, Richard 2009 Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Basic Books, New York.Google Scholar
Yellen, John E. 1977 Archaeological Approaches to the Present: Models for Reconstructing the Past. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Zhou, W. X., Sornette, Didier, Hill, R. A., and Dunbar, Robin I. M. 2005 Discrete Hierarchical Organization of Social Group Sizes. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 272:439–444.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Hamilton et al. supplementary material

Hamilton et al. supplementary material 1

Download Hamilton et al. supplementary material(File)
File 714.8 KB