Contemporary Hunter-gatherers Research Articles

Prosocial reputation and stress among contemporary hunter-gatherers: the Hadza case

It has been suggested that having a reputation for being prosocial is a critical part of social status across all human societies. It has also been argued that prosocial behavior confers benefits, whether physiological, such as stress reduction, or social, such as building allies or becoming more popular. Here, we investigate the relationship between helping reputation (being named as someone others would go to for help), and hair-derived chronic stress (hair cortisol concentration). In a sample of 77 women and 62 men, we found that perceived helping reputation was not related to chronic stress. Overall, the results of our study suggest that, in an egalitarian society with fluid camp membership and widely practiced generosity such as the Hadza, helping reputation does not necessarily boost stress-related health benefits through prestige-signaling mechanisms observed in hierarchical, large-scale societies.

Female foragers sometimes hunt, yet gendered divisions of labor are real: a comment on Anderson et al. (2023) The Myth of Man the Hunter

Gendered divisions of labor are a feature of every known contemporary hunter-gatherer (forager) society. While gender roles are certainly flexible, and prominent and well-studied cases of female hunting do exist, it is more often men who hunt. A new study (Anderson et al., 2023) surveyed ethnographically known foragers and found that women hunt in 79% of foraging societies, with big-game hunting occurring in 33%. Based on this single type of labor, which is one among dozens performed in foraging societies, the authors question the existence of gendered division of labor altogether. As a diverse group of hunter-gatherer experts, we find that claims that foraging societies lack or have weak gendered divisions of labor are contradicted by empirical evidence. We conducted an in-depth examination of the data and methods of Anderson et al. (2023), finding evidence of sample selection bias and numerous coding errors undermining the paper's conclusions. Anderson et al. (2023) have started a useful dialogue to ameliorate the potential misconception that women never hunt. However, their analysis does not contradict the wide body of empirical evidence for gendered divisions of labor in foraging societies. Furthermore, a myopic focus on hunting diminishes the value of contributions that take different forms and downplays the trade-offs foragers of both sexes routinely face. We caution against ethnographic revisionism that projects Westernized conceptions of labor and its value onto foraging societies.

Sensitive responsiveness and multiple caregiving networks among Mbendjele BaYaka hunter-gatherers: Potential implications for psychological development and well-being.

Attachment theory postulates that there is a particular style of caregiving that, because of its interaction with our evolved psychology, is most likely to result in healthy psychological development. Attachment research has been criticized because most studies have been conducted with Western populations. Critics argue this has (a) overemphasized the importance of sensitive responsive caregiving and (b) limited our understanding of multiple nonmaternal caregiving (allomothering). Here, we analyze the extent of sensitive responsiveness and structural properties of allomothering networks among Mbendjele hunter-gatherers who reside in the Republic of Congo. Humans lived as hunter-gatherers for the majority of our evolutionary history, thus studying contemporary hunter-gatherers can offer insight into the caregiving children may be psychologically adapted to. Based on 12-hr focal follows of 18 children (0-4 years old; 10 male), we constructed caregiving networks across the domains of responding to crying, physical contact, interactive care, and proximity. Crying was virtually always responded to rapidly via comforting and never via scolding. Children received physical contact and care for the majority of the day. Allomothering accounted for 40%-50% of caregiving in each domain. While allomaternal networks were large, they were highly concentrated-the majority of a child's allocare was provided by just a few caregivers. Due to high caregiver:child ratios, "sharing" of caregivers was limited-a child typically had several allomothers who directed a majority of their allomaternal effort to him/her. These findings add to our understanding of the level and sources of sensitive responsive caregiving that children may be evolutionarily primed to expect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Seasonality and schismogenesis

For a socio-cultural anthropology of contemporary hunter-gatherers, The Dawn of Everything (Graeber & Wengrow 2021) provides both good and bad news. It is good news in that it underlines the relevance of hunter-gatherer research for the here and now – beyond early humans and questions of origins. It is bad news insofar as the book proposes that the study of ‘hunter-gatherer societies’ is not a useful way to carve out a field of research and that we should be asking different questions. This contribution proposes that hunter-gatherer research continues to be a useful point of departure for engaging in a conversation about long-term social change. The article emulates one of the strategies in The Dawn of Everything , namely using the ‘indigenous critique’ to generate and enhance enlightenment thinking. Based on extended conversations with ≠Noa//oab and !Gamekhas, two ≠Akhoe Hai//om from northern Namibia, I comment critically on the notions of seasonality and schismogenesis that are important threads of The Dawn of Everything . Going back to these conversations allows us to go beyond ‘dawning’ (searching for original states) but also beyond ‘dooming’ (searching for the point when we got ‘stuck’). Practices of doing seasons and doing difference, I suggest, are ways of dealing with the socio-cultural system, if in a piecemeal manner; practices that are underrated by Graeber and Wengrow who therefore fail to see important continuities beyond changes and flexibility in hunter-gatherer lifeways, and beyond.

The primate gut mycobiome-bacteriome interface is impacted by environmental and subsistence factors

The gut microbiome of primates is known to be influenced by both host genetic background and subsistence strategy. However, these inferences have been made mainly based on adaptations in bacterial composition - the bacteriome and have commonly overlooked the fungal fraction - the mycobiome. To further understand the factors that shape the gut mycobiome of primates and mycobiome-bacteriome interactions, we sequenced 16 S rRNA and ITS2 markers in fecal samples of four different nonhuman primate species and three human groups under different subsistence patterns (n = 149). The results show that gut mycobiome composition in primates is still largely unknown but highly plastic and weakly structured by primate phylogeny, compared with the bacteriome. We find significant gut mycobiome overlap between captive apes and human populations living under industrialized subsistence contexts; this is in contrast with contemporary hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists, who share more mycobiome traits with diverse wild-ranging nonhuman primates. In addition, mycobiome-bacteriome interactions were specific to each population, revealing that individual, lifestyle and intrinsic ecological factors affect structural correspondence, number, and kind of interactions between gut bacteria and fungi in primates. Our findings indicate a dominant effect of ecological niche, environmental factors, and diet over the phylogenetic background of the host, in shaping gut mycobiome composition and mycobiome-bacteriome interactions in primates.

A Review of Japanese Ecological Anthropology on Central African Hunter-gatherers

Contemporary hunter-gatherers in central Africa face similar problems concerning their culture and environment: destruction of the forests that have been accommodating their unique forest-based culture, influences of market economy and consumerism, and nature conservation initiatives that restrict their extractive activities in protected areas. In order to cope with these problems, it is important to understand their life and culture in local ecological settings, as well as in historical and wider economic and political contexts. I will describe here three approaches that have been taken and developed by Japanese ecological anthropologists to the study of central African hunter-gatherers. The three approaches are (1) cultural ecology, which describes the way the hunter-gatherers perceive, understand and utilize the forest environment, (2) historical ecology, which shows how they modify the forest through interacting with it, and (3) political ecology, which analyzes how the economic and political situation influences their relationship with the forest. I will then examine the implications of the results from these approaches for addressing the current problems faced by the central African forest hunter-gatherers and their environment.

Global hunter-gatherer population densities constrained by influence of seasonality on diet composition.

The dependence of hunter-gatherers on local net primary production (NPP) to provide food played a major role in shaping long-term human population dynamics. Observations of contemporary hunter-gatherers have shown an overall correlation between population density and annual NPP, but with a thousand-fold variation in population density per unit NPP that remains unexplained. Here we build a process-based hunter-gatherer population model embedded within a global terrestrial biosphere model, which explicitly addresses the extraction of NPP through dynamically-allocated hunting and gathering activities. The emergent results reveal a strong, previously unrecognized effect of seasonality on population density via diet composition, whereby hunter-gatherers consume high fractions of meat in regions where growing seasons are short, leading to greatly reduced population density due to trophic inefficiency. This seasonal carnivory bottleneck largely explains the wide variation in population density per unit NPP, and questions the prevailing usage of annual NPP as the proxy of carrying capacity for ancient humans. Our process-based approach has the potential to greatly refine our understanding of dynamical responses of ancient human populations to past environmental changes.

Functional diversity of microbial ecologies estimated from ancient human coprolites and dental calculus.

Human microbiome studies are increasingly incorporating macroecological approaches, such as community assembly, network analysis and functional redundancy to more fully characterize the microbiome. Such analyses have not been applied to ancient human microbiomes, preventing insights into human microbiome evolution. We address this issue by analysing published ancient microbiome datasets: coprolites from Rio Zape (n = 7; 700 CE Mexico) and historic dental calculus (n = 44; 1770–1855 CE, UK), as well as two novel dental calculus datasets: Maya (n = 7; 170 BCE-885 CE, Belize) and Nuragic Sardinians (n = 11; 1400–850 BCE, Italy). Periodontitis-associated bacteria (Treponema denticola, Fusobacterium nucleatum and Eubacterium saphenum) were identified as keystone taxa in the dental calculus datasets. Coprolite keystone taxa included known short-chain fatty acid producers (Eubacterium biforme, Phascolarctobacterium succinatutens) and potentially disease-associated bacteria (Escherichia, Brachyspira). Overlap in ecological profiles between ancient and modern microbiomes was indicated by similarity in functional response diversity profiles between contemporary hunter–gatherers and ancient coprolites, as well as parallels between ancient Maya, historic UK, and modern Spanish dental calculus; however, the ancient Nuragic dental calculus shows a distinct ecological structure. We detected key ecological signatures from ancient microbiome data, paving the way to expand understanding of human microbiome evolution.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Insights into health and disease from ancient biomolecules’.

The material and mental effects of animal disappearance on indigenous hunter-gatherers, past and present

ABSTRACTFor indigenous hunter-gatherers, dependent for their subsistence and well-being on prey animals, animal extinction had significant and multifaceted effects, only some of which are reflected in the archaeological record. Contemporary hunter-gatherers often view animals as equal partners in a shared habitat, where these animals are simultaneously hunted and revered. We posit that this same duality existed among past hunter-gatherer groups. The disappearance of a species that supported human existence for millennia triggered not only technological and social changes but also had profound emotional and psychological effects. We present several selected case studies that reflect the complex dual relationship between indigenous hunter-gatherers and their prey under different environmental conditions. We focus on the material and mental effects of animal population decline over diverse cultures, geographies, and time scales. Our study sheds light on the vital role of specific animal taxa in human biological and cultural evolution. It also deepens our understanding of how indigenous hunter-gatherer societies expressed their awareness of coexistence with other species. In the age of the Sixth Extinction, this study might be more relevant than ever not only for reconstructing the life ways of indigenous hunter-gatherers but for all human and nonhuman species populating the planet.

The evolutionary paths to collective rituals: An interdisciplinary perspective on the origins and functions of the basic social act

The present article is an elaborated and upgraded version of the Early Career Award talk that I delivered at the IAPR 2019 conference in Gdańsk, Poland. In line with the conference’s thematic focus on new trends and neglected themes in psychology of religion, I argue that psychology of religion should strive for firmer integration with evolutionary theory and its associated methodological toolkit. Employing evolutionary theory enables to systematize findings from individual psychological studies within a broader framework that could resolve lingering empirical contradictions by providing an ultimate rationale for which results should be expected. The benefits of evolutionary analysis are illustrated through the study of collective rituals and, specifically, their purported function in stabilizing risky collective action. By comparing the socio-ecological pressures faced by chimpanzees, contemporary hunter-gatherers, and early Homo, I outline the selective pressures that may have led to the evolution of collective rituals in the hominin lineage, and, based on these selective pressures, I make predictions regarding the different functions and their underlying mechanisms that collective rituals should possess. While examining these functions, I echo the Early Career Award and focus mostly on my past work and the work of my collaborators, showing that collective rituals may stabilize risky collective action by increasing social bonding, affording to assort cooperative individuals, and providing a platform for reliable communication of commitment to group norms. The article closes with a discussion of the role that belief in superhuman agents plays in stabilizing and enhancing the effects of collective rituals on trust-based cooperation.

Variability in the organization and size of hunter-gatherer groups: Foragers do not live in small-scale societies

Mobile hunter-gatherers are often characterized as living in small communities where mobility and group size are products of the environmentally determined distribution of resources, and where social organization is multi-scalar: groups of co-residents are nested within small communities that are, in turn, nested within small-scale societies. Such organization is often assumed to be reflective of the human past, emerging as human cognition and communication evolved through earlier fission-fusion social processes, typical of many primate social systems. We review the history of this assumption in light of recent empirical data of co-residence and social networks among contemporary hunter-gatherers. We suggest that while residential and foraging groups are often small, there is little evidence that these groups are drawn from small communities nested within small-scale societies. Most mobile hunter-gatherers live in groups dominated by links between non-relatives, where residential group membership is fluid and supports large-scale social networks of interaction. We investigate these dynamics with fine-grained observational data on Martu foraging groups and social organization in Australia's Western Desert. The composition of Martu foraging groups is distinct from that of residential groups, although both are dominated by ties between individuals who have no close biological relationships. The number of individuals in a foraging group varies with habitat quality, but in a dynamic way, as group size is shaped by ecological legacies of land use. The flexible size and composition of foraging groups link individuals across their “estates”: spatially explicit storehouses of ritual and relational wealth, inherited across generations through maintaining expansive networks of social interaction in a large and complex society. We propose that human cognition is tied to development of such expansive social relationships and co-evolved with dynamic socio-ecological interactions expressed in large-scale networks of relational wealth.

Pacifying Hunter-Gatherers.

There is a well-entrenched schism on the frequency (how often), intensity (deaths per 100,000/year), and evolutionary significance of warfare among hunter-gatherers compared with large-scale societies. To simplify, Rousseauians argue that warfare among prehistoric and contemporary hunter-gatherers was nearly absent and, if present, was a late cultural invention. In contrast, so-called Hobbesians argue that violence was relatively common but variable among hunter-gatherers. To defend their views, Rousseauians resort to a variety of tactics to diminish the apparent frequency and intensity of hunter-gatherer warfare. These tactics include redefining war, censoring ethnographic accounts of warfare in comparative analyses, misconstruing archaeological evidence, and claiming that outside contact inflates the intensity of warfare among hunter-gatherers. These tactics are subject to critical analysis and are mostly found to be wanting. Furthermore, Hobbesians with empirical data have already established that the frequency and intensity of hunter-gatherer warfare is greater compared with large-scale societies even though horticultural societies engage in warfare more intensively than hunter-gatherers. In the end I argue that although war is a primitive trait we may share with chimpanzees and/or our last common ancestor, the ability of hunter-gatherer bands to live peaceably with their neighbors, even though war may occur, is a derived trait that fundamentally distinguishes us socially and politically from chimpanzee societies. It is a point often lost in these debates.

Dietary transitions among three contemporary hunter-gatherers across the tropics

The diets of contemporary hunter-gatherers are diverse and highly nutritious, but are rapidly changing as these societies integrate into the market economy. Here, we analyse empirical data on the dietary patterns and sources of foods of three contemporary hunter-gatherer societies: the Baka of Cameroon (n = 160), the Tsimane’ of Bolivia (n = 124) and the Punan Tubu of Indonesia (n = 109). We focus on differences among villages with different levels of integration into the market economy and explore potential pathways through which two key elements of the food environment (food availability and food accessibility) might alter the diets of contemporary hunter-gatherers. Results suggest that people living in isolated villages have more diverse diets than those living in villages closer to markets. Our results also suggest that availability of nutritionally important foods (i.e., fruits, vegetables and animal foods) decreases with increasing market integration, while availability of fats and sweets increases. The differences found seem to relate to changes in the wider food environment (e.g., village level access to wild and/or market foods and seasonality), rather than to individual-level factors (e.g., time allocation or individual income), probably because food sharing reduces the impact of individual level differences in food consumption. These results highlight the need to better understand the impact of changes in the wider food environment on dietary choice, and the role of the food environment in driving dietary transitions.

The Research and Advocacy Group for Hunter Gatherer Education

Contemporary hunter-gatherers are among the most marginalized peoples in the world today, and face severe threats to their cultures, their livelihoods, and in many places – their very existence. Although formal education – schooling – is often presented as a solution for marginalized groups, generally social hierarchies are reproduced through such systems, and the extreme marginalization of hunters and gatherers in modern societies is mirrored in their schooling experiences. For most such communities, formal education is simultaneously difficult to access, of poor quality, culturally insensitive, and disconnected from communities’ immediate realities. Their own cultural forms of education are based on knowledge transmission approaches that are deeply integrated into social structures, values and cosmology, and subsistence strategies of the group. These approaches have been highly successful in a hunter-gatherer context. However, these traditional forms of knowledge transmission, though recognized as being highly effective and adaptive, are under threat due to loss of land, climate change, and other factors. As traditional livelihoods and resources are increasingly narrowed, hunter-gatherer communities are seeking other options. Formal education is one route to increased economic opportunities, and ideally provides access to dominant languages and other skills needed to negotiate for their rights. It is also a favored approach of governments and international organizations; g

Hunter-gatherers and education

This article provides an overview of some of the main themes that have emerged in the research on hunter gatherers and education. The term ‘education’ refers both to schooling, and to the traditional pedagogical modes of knowledge transmission that hunter-gatherer communities have developed and maintained over millennia. Formal education plays a crucial, yet complicated role for contemporary hunter-gatherers; it is considered to be a foundational element for economic and social development, yet also continues to be a tool of assimilation. Participation in schooling can also conflict with local livelihood strategies, culture and knowledge. While this is the case for many marginalised groups, hunter-gatherers are one of the most marginalised and most vulnerable groups, and face some of the most challenging problems with formal education. This paper examines these issues from a human rights perspective, and within a global context. We describe the main challenges that hunter-gatherers face regarding participation in formal education, including physical, financial, social, cultural and structural barriers, and highlight issues of both inclusion and assimilation. We also examine traditional knowledge and educational approaches among hunter-gatherer communities, calling for a much greater appreciation of the importance and relevance to current global concerns.

Human Cooperation: The Hunter-Gatherer Puzzle

In tracing the roots of human cooperation, researchers have gleaned insights from the sociality of contemporary hunter-gatherers. A new study among the Hadza, one of the few surviving foraging populations, challenges popular approaches to cooperation while suggesting a central role for cultural transmission.

Elephant and Mammoth Hunting during the Paleolithic: A Review of the Relevant Archaeological, Ethnographic and Ethno-Historical Records

Proboscideans and humans have shared habitats across the Old and New Worlds for hundreds of thousands of years. Proboscideans were included in the human diet starting from the Lower Paleolithic period and until the final stages of the Pleistocene. However, the question of how prehistoric people acquired proboscideans remains unresolved. Moreover, the effect of proboscidean hunting on the eventual extinction of these mega-herbivores was never seriously evaluated, probably because of the lack of acquaintance with the plethora of information available regarding proboscidean hunting by humans. The aim of this paper is to bridge this gap and bring to light the data available in order to estimate the extent and procedures of elephant and mammoth hunting by humans during the Quaternary. This study examines the archaeological evidence of proboscidean hunting during Paleolithic times, and provides a review of ethnographic and ethno-historical accounts, demonstrating a wide range of traditional elephant-hunting strategies. We also discuss the rituals accompanying elephant hunting among contemporary hunter-gatherers, further stressing the importance of elephants among hunter-gatherers. Based on the gathered data, we suggest that early humans possessed the necessary abilities to actively and regularly hunt proboscideans; and performed this unique and challenging task at will.

Gestión cinegética racional ligada a la praxis de la caza y la recolección. ¿Entelequia aristotélica o quimera?

Gestión cinegética racional ligada a la praxis de la caza y la recolección. ¿Entelequia aristotélica o quimera? Desde los albores de su historia filogenética, el consumo de proteínas de origen animal ha tenido gran relevancia en la evolución de los humanos. La caza cooperativa representa una estrategia evolutiva estable a partir del momento en que los cazadores paleolíticos se especializan en la persecución de grandes animales. Todo este proceso implica la adopción de decisiones relacionadas con la gestión de la caza, algunas de las cuales siguen siendo utilizadas por los cazadores-recolectores contemporáneos. En estas sociedades que todavía practican la caza como medio de subsistencia, la composición de sus respectivas dietas y las técnicas de explotación empleadas son explicables bajo supuestos teóricos contenidos en la Teoría del Forrajeo Óptimo (TFO). Con objeto de poner a prueba dicha teoría, se han tomado en consideración cuatro decisiones que implican la adopción de diferentes estrategias de gestión por parte de los cazadores-recolectores: I) qué comer, II) dónde y cómo buscar el alimento, III) cuáles son el tamaño y composición más adecuados del grupo de cazadores-recolectores y IV) qué pautas de manipulación y reparto de las presas son más eficientes. La TFO se ha puesto a prueba en diversas ocasiones y, en un alto porcentaje de los casos estudiados, sus predicciones se ajustan a lo observado en distintas sociedades cazadoras-recolectoras. Esto significa que la maximización de los rendimientos de captura a corto plazo es su principal preocupación, en lugar de comportarse como “depredadores prudentes” o realizar una selección pasiva de sus presas en función del tamaño, accesibilidad y abundancia de las mismas. Dicho comportamiento no niega que los cazadores-recolectores actúen como conservacionistas pero descarta que esa sea la principal preocupación de su modo de vida. No cabe duda de que los pueblos indígenas tienen un amplio conocimiento del medio, pero no está claro si lo utilizan para mantener un balance con la naturaleza o para ser cazadores más eficientes Es más probable que la extracción sostenible se deba a una baja presión de caza en zonas donde abundan las presas, lo que constituye un epifenómeno en lugar de una estrategia deliberada de conservación. A tenor de los datos disponibles, seguir manteniendo el mito del salvaje ecológicamente noble es tan falaz como peligroso de cara a la solución de sus problemas presentes y futuros. Dicha concepción errónea deriva, en parte, de confundir sostenibilidad y conservación. No obstante, resulta oportuno recordar que las conclusiones derivadas de la presente revisión tienen un valor estrictamente académico y no justifican juicios morales improcedentes respecto a los derechos de los cazadores-recolectores.

How early human groups were organized

Human Evolution Sequencing ancient hominid remains has provided insights into the relatedness between individuals. However, it is not clear whether ancient humans bred among close relatives, as is common in some modern human cultures. Sikora et al. report genome sequences from four early humans buried close together in western Russia about 34,000 years ago (see the Perspective by Bergstrom and Tyler-Smith). The individuals clustered together genetically and came from a population with a small effective size, but they were not very closely related. Thus, these people may represent a single social group that was part of a larger mating network, similar to contemporary hunter-gatherers. The lack of close inbreeding might help to explain the survival advantage of anatomically modern humans. Science , this issue p. [659][1]; see also p. [586][2] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aao1807 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aaq0771

Teaching in Hunter-Gatherers

Most of what we know about teaching comes from research among people living in large, politically and economically stratified societies with formal education systems and highly specialized roles with a global market economy. In this paper, we review and synthesize research on teaching among contemporary hunter-gatherer societies. The hunter-gatherer lifeway is the oldest humanity has known and is more representative of the circumstances under which teaching evolved and was utilized most often throughout human history. Research among contemporary hunter-gatherers also illustrates a complex pattern of teaching that is both consistent with and distinct from teaching in other small- and large-scale societies with different subsistence practices and cultural forms. In particular, we find that the cultural emphasis on individual autonomy and socio-political egalitarianism among hunter-gatherers differently shapes how teaching occurs. For example, teaching clearly exists among hunter-gatherers and appears in many forms, including institutionalized instruction in valued cultural and technical skills. However, teaching tends to be less common in hunter-gatherer societies because people live in small, intimate egalitarian, groups that support each other’s learning in a variety of ways without teaching. Furthermore, foundational cultural schemas of autonomy and egalitarianism impact the nature of teaching. For example, adults and older children limit their interventions, permitting autonomous learning, and, when they occur, teaching episodes are generally brief, subtle, indirect, and situated in a present activity (i.e. knowledge is not objectified or intended to be generalizable). We discuss the implications of this research in terms of discussions of the evolution of human cognition and the co-evolution of teaching and culture through the process of cultural niche construction.