Let's go fishing: A quantitative analysis of subsistence choices with a special focus on mixed economies among small-scale societies.

Jorge Caro,Débora Zurro,Virginia Ahedo,Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque,José Manuel Galán

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0254539

Abstract

The transition to agriculture is regarded as a major turning point in human history. In the present contribution we propose to look at it through the lens of ethnographic data by means of a machine learning approach. More specifically, we analyse both the subsistence economies and the socioecological context of 1290 societies documented in the Ethnographic Atlas with a threefold purpose: (i) to better understand the variability and success of human economic choices; (ii) to assess the role of environmental settings in the configuration of the different subsistence economies; and (iii) to examine the relevance of fishing in the development of viable alternatives to cultivation. All data were extracted from the publicly available cross-cultural database D-PLACE. Our results suggest that not all subsistence combinations are viable, existing just a subset of successful economic choices that appear recurrently in specific ecological systems. The subsistence economies identified are classified as either primary or mixed economies in accordance with an information-entropy-based quantitative criterion that determines their degree of diversification. Remarkably, according to our results, mixed economies are not a marginal choice, as they constitute 25% of the cases in our data sample. In addition, fishing seems to be a key element in the configuration of mixed economies, as it is present across all of them.

Highlights

The Origins of AgricultureThe Origins of Agriculture (OA) is a mainstay of archaeological research, being the transition to farming regarded as one of the major developments in our past [1,2,3,4,5]
The results of the Principal Components Analysis (PCA) conducted on the subsistence dataset can be found in Table 3, where we can see that the total variance of the data is effectively explained by the first four PCA dimensions
Question 1: Regarding subsistence strategies, are all combinations viable or do specific patterns exist?. This question has been addressed by means of the unsupervised learning approach; the answer we found is that clear patterns exist in the data, not being all combinations viable

Summary

Introduction

The Origins of Agriculture (OA) is a mainstay of archaeological research, being the transition to farming regarded as one of the major developments in our past [1,2,3,4,5]. Notwithstanding, after more than a hundred years of research on the OA, we are only just beginning to understand the details of the process [6], remaining plenty of questions unanswered and being the topic still considered one the most relevant scientific challenges for Archaeology [7]. A quantitative analysis of subsistence choices focused on mixed economies through BDNS 425389 (VA, JMG); and from the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) through the NASA project (VA, JC, JMG). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion