Living outside the box: An updated perspective on diet breadth and sexual division of labor in the Prearchaic Great Basin

Abstract

A tremendous amount has been learned about the Prearchaic (before 9000 BP) Great Basin since we advocated a perspective of sexual division of labor based on Human Behavioral Ecology a decade ago. Many investigators have taken our advice and a few have challenged our assumptions and inferences. One of the most substantive critiques has been that we misunderstood the paleoenvironmental parameters of ungulate populations during the Pleistocene–Holocene Transition (PHT). Simultaneously, behavioral ecologists have advanced our understanding of sexual division of labor among modern foragers, but these studies appear to have gone unnoticed by Great Basin prehistorians. We review findings of the last ten years and suggest that the key to understanding patterning in the PHT still relies on understanding (a) variability in men's and women's foraging goals, (b) the abundance and distribution of large prey, (c) how changing environmental parameters effect both the division of labor and the distribution of resources, and (d) the relative influence of search and handling costs on residence time in PHT wetlands. We suggest that consideration of how paleoenvironmental variability structured sexual division of labor remains key to fully understanding Prearchaic lifeways in the Great Basin.