Showing papers in "Human Ecology in 1987"
TL;DR: In this article, an alternative hypothesis that tropical rain forests are actually food-poor for humans is proposed, namely, wild starch foods such as yams were so scarce and so hard to extract that human foragers could not have lived in such biomes without recourse to cultivated foods.
Abstract: It has been generally assumed until recently that tropical rain forests are food-rich biomes for human foragers, and that prehistoric hunter-gatherers once lived completely independent of cultivated foods in such environments. An alternative hypothesis that such forests are actually food-poor for humans is proposed here. Specifically, that wild starch foods such as yams were so scarce and so hard to extract that human foragers could not have lived in such biomes without recourse to cultivated foods. The symbiotic relationship found today between tropical forest hunter-gatherers and farmers is not a recent phenomenon, but evolved long ago as an adaptive strategy for successfully exploiting the tropical forest.
154 citations
TL;DR: The effects of a 2-year drought on the livestock population of the nomadic pastoral Ngisonyoka are discussed in this paper, where detailed data on mortality rates and offtake are presented for the animals of four herd owners and the recovery process is followed for the 5-year period for one herd owner.
Abstract: From 1980–1985, the Turkana District of Kenya experienced both drought and above average rainfall. The effects of a 2-year drought on the livestock population of the nomadic pastoral Ngisonyoka are discussed. Detailed data on mortality rates and offtake are presented for the animals of four herd owners, and the recovery process is followed for the 5-year period for one herd owner. It is concluded that during the drought, 63% of the cattle, 45% of the camels, and 55% of the small stock left the sample herds. The livestock population of one herd had recovered to pre-drought levels 3 years after the drought.
132 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that women contribute significantly to marine food yields in the region and suggest that the highly regular nature of women's fishing makes women more reliable, and therefore more effective than men as suppliers of protein for subsistence.
Abstract: Women's fishing in Oceania has been overlooked in most subsistence studies in the region and, as a consequence, there are few quantitative data available upon which to base an assessment of its importance. However, in the present study, the few data available on women's fishing in Oceania are examined, and these show that women contribute significantly to marine food yields in the region. Also, it is suggested that the highly regular nature of women's fishing makes women more reliable, and therefore more effective than men as suppliers of protein for subsistence. The implications of these findings for future development policies in the region are then discussed.
130 citations
TL;DR: This article described Aboriginal subsistance patterns in the northern part of the Western Desert, Western Australia and provided a quantified description of the plant and animal resources, and drew attention to specific aspects of Aboriginal subsistence in this area.
Abstract: This paper describes Aboriginal subsistance patterns in the northern part of the Western Desert, Western Australia. It describes the seasonal round of the Aboriginal people living in this area, provides a quantified description of the plant and animal resources, and concludes by drawing attention to specific aspects of Aboriginal subsistence in this area.
87 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the primary components of Tlaxcalan corn agriculture are described, including cropping patterns employed, resource management strategies, and interactions of human and biological factors.
Abstract: The primary components of Tlaxcalan corn agriculture are described, including cropping patterns employed, resource management strategies, and interactions of human and biological factors. Tlaxcalan farmers grow corn in an array of poly-culture and agroforestry designs that result in a series of ecological processes important for insect pest and soil fertility management. Measurements derived from a few selected fields show that trees integrated into cropping systems modify the aerial and soil environment of associated understory corn plants, influencing their growth and yields. With decreasing distance from trees, surface concentrations of most soil nutrients increase. Certain tree species affect corn yields more than others. Arthropod abundance also varies depending on their degree of association with one or more of the vegetational components of the system. Densities of predators and the corn pest Macrodactylussp. depend greatly on the presence and phenology of adjacent alfalfa strips. Although the data were derived from nonreplicated fields, they nevertheless point out some important trends, information that can be used to design new crop associations that will achieve sustained soil fertility and low pest potentials.
70 citations
TL;DR: It is shown that the Cuiva depend primarily on game and wild roots during the early dry season for their subsistence, and men provide more calories than women and are the more efficient food producers.
Abstract: The subsistence ecology of Venezuelan Cuiva foragers during the early dry season is described. Data on diet, time allocation, demography, and physical measurements are presented. Analyses show that the Cuiva depend primarily on game and wild roots during the early dry season for their subsistence. Sex differentials in productive efficiency, total contribution to the diet, and time allocation to food acquisition and other activities are also examined. As in most other foraging societies, men specialize in hunting while women specialize in gathering. During the early dry season, men provide more calories than women and are the more efficient food producers. However, men spend slightly less time than women in food acquisition. Demographic data show that child mortality rates, female infertility rates, female infanticide rates,and the sex ratio among juveniles are high in the Cuiva population. Comparisons between the patterns found among the Cuiva and other foraging populations are made.
69 citations
TL;DR: A definition of shifted cultivation is proposed that focuses attention on the relationship between the natural vegetationsoil complex and the shifting cultivator, and two methods of including the energy contribution of forest biomass in calculating the productivity of shifting cultivation systems are compared.
Abstract: Shifting cultivation has traditionally been characterized as a highly productive system in terms of the ratio of energy outputs to inputs. This characterization, however, does not take into account the energy contribution of the natural vegetation cleared in preparing the field for cultivation. As a result, the central feature of shifting cultivation, the exploitation of the natural vegetationsoil complex as a substitute for human labor, has been ignored. The omission of the biomass contribution can be attributed to both a focus on the practices involved rather than the underlying strategy of the shifting cultivator, and an excessive preoccupation with the renewability of the energy sources involved in different agricultural systems. A definition of shifting cultivation is proposed that focuses attention on the relationship between the natural vegetationsoil complex and the shifting cultivator. Two methods of including the energy contribution of forest biomass in calculating the productivity of shifting cultivation systems are compared. When the biomass contribution is included, shifting cultivation appears to be an extremely unproductive system of agriculture.
44 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe adult time allocation at the settlement and contrast it with their previous descriptions of time allocation during foraging periods, and report that men and women work fewer hours each day than they do in the forest, people eat less, women do more work apart from their children, and men invest more in direct parental care.
Abstract: The Northern Ache comprise a small continuously interacting population with a shared community history. Full-time hunter-gatherers until recently, they now divide their time between mobile foraging and settled farming. Here we describe adult time allocation at the settlement and contrast it with our previous descriptions of time allocation during foraging periods. We report that at the settlement men and women work fewer hours each day than they do in the forest, people eat less, women do more work apart from their children, and men invest more in direct parental care. Explanations for differences in time allocation between foragers and farmers should apply to the variation in work effort, production goals, division of labor, and parenting strategies reported here, and conversely.
42 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a study of the human carrying capacity for the region and the likely pattern of human land-use during pre-history is presented, which suggests a much more complex history for Amazonia than previously thought.
Abstract: Studies of Rio Negro subsistence farming and fishing activities are used to estimate the human carrying capacity for the region and the likely pattern of human land-use during prehistory. Ceramic evidence suggests human presence in the region more than 3000 years ago. Traditional farming is labor intensive and relatively unproductive. Nevertheless, farmers achieve an energy return of 15.2∶1, and produce 2600 kcal per work hour. Fish are the major protein source, but fish catch per unit of effort and fish yield per hectare of floodplain are very low; fishermen are probably exploiting local fish resources very close to their limit. The low human population density would suggest that the Rio Negro forest has been relatively undisturbed. Nevertheless, charcoal is widespread and abundant in forest soils. This charcoal is probably from anthropogenic or natural wildfires. These results suggest a much more complex history for Amazonia than previously thought.
37 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the effect of environmental change on the archeological record of hunter-gatherer societies and found evidence of plant food management through fire around 6800 BP suggests a longer history of deliberate swamp exploitation.
Abstract: Recent theories of socio-economic change in hunter-gatherer societies have referred to associated changes in intensity and mode of resource exploitation. These ideas are examined in the light of pollen and charcoal analyses of an Australian coastal wetland system which allow, at the local scale, (1) documentation of resource availability, (2) identification of resource use, particularly where fire technology is involved, and (3) examination of the effect of environmental change on the archeological record. Evidence of plant food management through fire around 6800 BP suggests a longer history of deliberate swamp exploitation than indicated by the archeological record, and lends support to models which propose long-term gradual change in zones of high productivity.
37 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the Andoke and Witoto crop system remains adaptive at individual field level, particularly in its constituent species, its fundamental adaptation is considered to be its integration into the broader “field and fallow” system that juxtaposes crop production with extended periods of forest regeneration.
Abstract: The investigation of crop and soil-crop conditions among Andoke and Witoto cultivators in southeast Colombia is used as a basis for assessing Geertz' (1963) model of swidden cultivation. In this respect, the extent to which maniocdominated swiddens in the study area “simulate” the structure and composition of the forest climax community is questioned. As Geertz (1963) indicates, an initial nutrient boost for crop cultivation results from the preliminary burning of forest debris, but weed competition, rather than progressive loss of soil fertility, is reported to be the primary cause of abandoning manioc cultivation after 2–3 years. While the Andoke and Witoto crop system remains adaptive at the individual field level, particularly in its constituent species, its fundamental adaptation is considered to be its integration into the broader “field and fallow” system that juxtaposes crop production with extended periods of forest regeneration.
TL;DR: It is argued that when examined from the standpoint of ecosystem simplification, biological variability, and subsistence vulnerability, the taro monocultures exhibit many ecological and systemic properties commonly attributed to polycultures.
Abstract: An ancient, sustainable, and low risk Colocasiataro monoculture has persisted until modern times among the Mountain Ok peoples of central New Guinea. There is a monoculture-polyculture axis in the region with taro monocultures predominant in the rain forests of the mid-altitude fringe. We argue that when examined from the standpoint of ecosystem simplification, biological variability, and subsistence vulnerability, the taro monocultures exhibit many ecological and systemic properties commonly attributed to polycultures. Monoculture is not an exclusive category; specific cases must be placed in a broader context of the larger ecosystem and the options people have at their disposal. Reduction of the taro monoculture is occurring in response to modernization pressures.
TL;DR: A summarization of this information suggests a possible pattern by which birth rates rise, death rates fall (but may rise in certain circumstances), and natural increase rates rise along the nomadism-sedentarism continuum.
Abstract: Vital statistics on pastoral nomadic and sedentarizing nomadic societies are by-and-large non-existent. Such information is highly important for both academic and policy-making reasons as pastoral nomadism as a mode of life is disappearing. This paper attempts to gather and present as much information as possible on crude birth and death rates and natural increase rates for various pastoral nomadic societies in different African and Middle Eastern countries. The information is arranged by a subdivision into nomads, seminomads, and sedentarized nomads. A summarization of this information suggests a possible pattern by which birth rates rise, death rates fall (but may rise in certain circumstances), and natural increase rates rise along the nomadism-sedentarism continuum. Such a possible pattern has several policy implications for governments assessing the needs of a nomadic society undergoing a process of change in its socio-ecological relationships.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the ecological implications of Mormon settlement in the Little Colorado River Basin and demonstrate the application of general ecological concepts in human ecology, the ecological basis for the evolution of complex human communities, the interactive, hierarchical relationship between community diversity and environmental stability, and the positive contribution that human ecology can make to the general discussion of diversity and stability.
Abstract: By describing the ecological implications of Mormon settlement in the Little Colorado River Basin, the paper demonstrates: (1) the application of general ecological concepts in human ecology, (2) the ecological basis for the evolution of complex human communities, (3) the interactive, hierarchical relationship between community diversity and environmental stability, and (4) the positive contribution that human ecology can make to the general discussion of diversity and stability in ecological systems. The paper gives a brief description of Mormon colonization in the Little Colorado River Basin. Local differences in community development are then related to environmental variation within the basin and compared to general ecological research expectations. The implications of community development in this region for explaining the relationship between diversity and stability in ecological systems are discussed.
TL;DR: In this paper, a review of selected case material, and a detailed examination of one relocated community is highlighted, where native communities have reestablished themselves beyond the reach of government planners, the recreation of more culturally appropriate settlement patterns has ensued.
Abstract: The relocation and consolidation of subarctic native populations into settlement patterns designed according to southern, urban models has often resulted in cultural confusion and an increase in interpersonal tension, alcohol abuse, and violence. Through a review of selected case material, and the detailed examination of one relocated community, the dynamics of this situation are highlighted. Where native communities have re-established themselves beyond the reach of government planners, the recreation of more culturally appropriate settlement patterns has ensued.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the lack of either empirical or theoretical justification for the general cost/benefit principle which Harris purports to use to explain food habits, the impracticability of the research program implied by the principle, divergence of some of Harris' own explanations from the principle and their conformity to a contextual mode of explanation, and the explanatory fallacy exemplified by Harris' treatment of the case of Hindu beef aversion.
Abstract: In recent anthropological debates concerning food, the contention between materialists/utilitarians and symbolists/structuralists has been vociferous (Ross, 1980; Harris, 1979, 1987; Sahlins, 1978, 1979), but both sides have neglected some important methodological problems and broad issues of explanation. An opportunity to focus on these is afforded by the publication of a new book in which Marvin Harris, the archmaterialist in the debates, puts forth his explanation of various food preferences and avoidances. In reviewing the book here, I first indicate the main cases which Harris considers and I summarize the explanations that he gives for them. The following is then shown: (1) the lack of either empirical or theoretical justification for the general cost/benefit principle which Harris purports to use to explain food habits, (2) the impracticability of the research program implied by the principle, (3) the divergence of some of Harris' own explanations from the principle and their conformity to a contextual mode of explanation, (4) the explanatory fallacy exemplified by Harris' treatment of the case of Hindu beef aversion, and (5) the attention to mechanisms which is required to avert this fallacy when actions and the ideas behind them are explained by their benefits. My concluding remarks concern monism and pluralism in explanation.
TL;DR: It is hypothesized that a number of factors including male elder control of society, sexually transmitted diseases, seasonal food shortages, and general environmental health hazards all act together to suppress fertility among the Maasai.
Abstract: This paper inquires into the reasons for the comparatively lower fertility and population growth among the Maasai (than among other Kenyan communities, particularly cultivators). It hypothesizes that a number of factors including male elder control of society, sexually transmitted diseases, seasonal food shortages, and general environmental health hazards all act together to suppress fertility. This situation must certainly change with further socioeconomic progress.
TL;DR: In this paper, a cultural model of environmental expectation and intervention is inferred from Malagasy games, dwellings, and forecasts, based on which a set of underlying principles are identified, and the relevance of the concepts to four practical problems of environmental management.
Abstract: Ecological events which recur with a period of 5–30 years are perceived as “discontinuities” and culturally interpreted. A cultural model of environmental expectation and intervention is inferred from Malagasy games, dwellings, and forecasts. In a series of examples from Malagasy communities, we shall first identify a set of underlying principles. We shall refer briefly to the nearest corresponding concepts in western scientific thought, known as catastrophe theory, and show the relevance of the concepts to four practical problems of environmental management.
TL;DR: An overall seasonal trend was found with a peak from August through November, found to be most pronounced among women greater than 24 yeas old, and among multiparous women, and to be negatively correlated with seasonal variations in temperature and daylight.
Abstract: Births in Greene County, Alabama for the years 1980–1984 were examined and an overall seasonal trend was found with a peak from August through November. This trend was found to be most pronounced among women greater than 24 yeas old, and among multiparous women, and to be negatively correlated with seasonal variations in temperature and daylight. The phenomenon is likely multifactorial in origin, with sociocultural factors playing a considerable role. The influence of increasing maternal age and parity in the expression of the seasonal trend may be a function of age-related changes in families, with nuclear families acting as the most powerful potentiators of seasonality.
TL;DR: Good to eat (Harris, 1985, 1987c) attempts to show that an integrated set of theories of human food preferences and avoidances can be constructed using a parsimonious set of cultural materialist principles.
Abstract: Good to Eat (Harris, 1985, 1987c) attempts to show that an integrated set of theories of human food preferences and avoidances can be constructed using a parsimonious set of cultural materialist principles. Since foodways are among the least understood of sociocultural phenomena, it is as a rare compliment that Vayda has found some of explanations "quite plausible," even if they have not been supported with "clear cut evidence" and even if basic theoretical principles and methods according to him are all wrong. Explanations in the social sciences, including Vayda's, seldom achieve a degree of truth greater than plausibility. At any rate, Good to Eat is nothing more than an atttempt to present plausible theories.
TL;DR: The Kilenge people of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea as discussed by the authors examined some of the nutritional, economic, social, and political impacts of these changes on the individual, on the household and on the community in one Kilenge village.
Abstract: In recent years, many rural Third World communities have suffered from the gradual degradation of the natural resources on which they depend. The Kilenge people of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea, offer such an example. The paper examines some of the nutritional, economic, social, and political impacts of these changes on the individual, on the household, and on the community in one Kilenge village. It argues that there may be alternatives to dependent development for this community. It concludes that redirected priorities can assist indigenous communities like Kilenge to achieve sustainable selfdirected economic improvement.
TL;DR: In this paper, the success of an agricultural industry in commercial duck egg production in the swamplands of South Kalimantan (Borneo) is examined through the utilization of a human ecology framework.
Abstract: The success of an agricultural industry in commercial duck egg production in the swamplands of South Kalimantan (Borneo) is examined through the utilization of a human ecology framework. Seasonality of resource availability and human population growth are identified as two major constraints to production faced by farmers. Population increases in the urban sectors of southeastern Borneo also present economic opportunities for farmers because of the growing demand for poultry products. Farmers have responded by developing an intensification strategy in egg production based on the use of diversified resources for duck feed. The long-term consequences of these and other innovations in duck farming are discussed; and diversity-stability theory is examined for its applicability to this case of agricultural development and for rural development theory and practice.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors explicitly do not reject a cost/benefit approach, do not claim that only benefits intended by the actors can be regarded as causes of their activities, and do not hold a brief for "arbitrary sentiments, desires, intentions, etc" as explanantia.
Abstract: Contrary to Harris' comment, I explicitly do not reject a cost/benefit approach, do not claim that only benefits intended by the actors can be regarded as causes of their activities, do not hold a brief for "arbitrary sentiments, desires, intentions, etc" as explanantia, and do not demand "precise metrical measurement" to support all explanations When cost/benefit explanations are justified and when they are not is in fact the main question with which much of my article is concerned Intentional action to secure the benefits is put forward as only one of four mechanisms whereby benefits may affect the adoption, spread, or persistence of a practice; the operation of the three other mechanisms (natural selection, reinforcement, and the mechanism like natural selection) does not require the benefits in question to be intended ones In the case of reinforcement, my referring to the possible enhancement of cow love and beef avoidance by the "feelings of pleasure or satisfaction which poor farmers got from eating dairy products or from having their fields well plowed by their oxen" (rather than, to use Harris' examples, from grooming and seeing their animals) is not arbitrary What I am indicating is that the satisfaction derived from specific benefits may reinforce the actions resulting in those benefits even if the actions are not intentionally undertaken to secure those benefits and satisfactions (cf Elster, 1983, p 107) With respect to including the intentions, purposes, knowledge, and beliefs of the actors in the explanantia for their actions, I state clearly that all of these many themselves be made objects of explanation, and I cite Harris himself not only on the religious and political ideas and aims behind beef aversion but also on the sources and development of the ideas This hardly bears out his view that necessarily arbitrary or inexplicable ideas are endorsed by me for explaining actions As for my criticizing Harris for not having better measurements, this is done only because of his claims for the causal
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TL;DR: Weinstock's (1984) brief communication concerning the comparability of South American and Southeast Asian swidden systems makes two interesting substantive points and one significant conceptual error as mentioned in this paper, and it is only by recognizing it as such that one can appreciate the value of Weinstocks substantive points.
Abstract: Weinstock's (1984) brief communication concerning the comparability of South American and Southeast Asian swidden systems makes two interesting substantive points and one significant conceptual error. I treat the error first because it is only by recognizing it as such that one can appreciate the value of Weinstock's substantive points. Weinstock holds that the articles in Human Ecology (Beckerman, 1983a,b; Boster, 1983; Hames, 1983; Stocks, 1983; Vickers, 1983) "revolve around a false issue." That issue is the contrast of these "South American findings with those of Geertz (1963) and Conklin (1957). Such comparisons are analogous to comparing apples and bananas as fruit and wondering why one is round and the other is not." Weinstock asserts the analogy works because (most importantly among several differences) the South American swiddens are primarily root crop systems, while the Southeast Asian cases are grain crop swiddens. There is indeed a difference here, and the apples and bananas analogy is instructive. The shape as well as the size of cultivated fruits is a character in which human intervention is highly apparent. To the extent to which the wild characteristics are still present in a cultivar, the shape of a fruit (a detachable reproductive package of some kinds of higher plants) represents the results of selective forces for dispersal and seedling establishment as they act on archetypic constraints of the genetics and development of the parent plant. To the extent to which wild characteristics have been modified by human action, a fruit is a record of the interaction of human choice and genetic variability in the ancestral population(s). The question of why some fruits are round and others are not is a fundamental and interesting biological ques-