ARID‐LAND FORAGING AS SEEN FROM AUSTRALIA: ADAPTIVE MODELS AND BEHAVIORAL REALITIES

Abstract

This paper reviews assumptions guiding earlier models of social and economic behavior among arid land hunter‐gatherers, especially those models that argued for the ‘original affluent society’ and concepts requiring groups of fixed size and composition operating within stable, bounded territories. A close look at socioeconomic behavior among ethnographic Ngatatjara Aborigines of the Western Desert challenges these assumptions and introduces an adaptive model based on ‘strategy switching’. In order to minimize risks imposed by droughts, the Ngatatjara responded in their movements and group composition by means of two alternative strategies: drought escape and drought evasion. Drought escape involved temporary abandonment of entire areas by individual households or by individuals to distant, better‐favored areas. Drought evasion involved retreat by small family groups into areas within their ‘home’ country where relatively dependable water resources were available. Drought escape and drought evasion strategies are briefly considered as factors in early plant domestication in the context of prehistoric arid‐land foraging societies in places like the Tehuacan Valley on the Mexican Plateau.