Systemic population control in the middle and upper palaeolithic: Inferences based on contemporary hunter‐gatherers

Abstract

Abstract Since reproductive cycles are shorter than life cycles every species tends towards overpopulation and must be subject to population control. Since man, the dominant life form in the ecosystem, adapts primarily through culture, his culture must include, as part of its adaptive scheme, a subsystem to control population growth. A systemic model of population control is presented involving female infanticide which regulates the excess females and produces a shortage of adult women. Because of their scarcity, conflicts over women are the cause of most primitive warfare through which the excess males are regulated. This model is tested cross‐culturally on a sample of ninety‐nine populations representing thirty‐seven contemporary hunter‐gatherer societies by demonstrating the effects of infanticide and warfare on the age‐sex structure of these populations. Inferences are made as to the presence of this system among prehistoric hunters and it is speculated that this system of population control first evo...