Forest Hunter-gatherers Research Articles

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.

Foraging Performance, Prosociality, and Kin Presence Do Not Predict Lifetime Reproductive Success in Batek Hunter-Gatherers.

Identifying the determinants of reproductive success in small-scale societies is critical for understanding how natural selection has shaped human evolution and behavior. The available evidence suggests that status-accruing behaviors such as hunting and prosociality are pathways to reproductive success, but social egalitarianism may diminish this pathway. Here we introduce a mixed longitudinal/cross-sectional dataset based on 45years of research with the Batek, a population of egalitarian rain forest hunter-gatherers in Peninsular Malaysia, and use it to test the effects of four predictors of lifetime reproductive success: (i) foraging return rate, (ii) sharing proclivity, (iii) cooperative foraging tendency, and (iv) kin presence. We found that none of these factors can explain variation in lifetime reproduction among males or females. We suggest that social egalitarianism, combined with strikingly low infant and juvenile mortality rates, can mediate the pathway between foraging, status-accruing behavior, and reproductive success. Our approach advocates for greater theoretical and empirical attention to quantitative social network measures, female foraging, and fitness outcomes.

Beyond productivity: The socio-cultural role of fishing among the Baka of southeastern Cameroon

For long, the importance of fishing for forest societies has been hiding behind the term “hunter-gatherers”. Whereas the importance of hunting is commonly recognized among such societies, some research has also highlighted that fishing is a primordial resource for subsistence, as well as a key element in the cosmology of several forest societies. However, very few studies — and less so among Central African forest societies — have focused on fishing practices and their social, cultural and symbolic complexity. To contribute to fill this gap, we analyze fishing activities among two Baka communities from southeastern Cameroon, particularly focusing on fishing productivity as well as the ethnoecological specificities and the socio-cultural role of fishing. Data were collected through interviews and systematic observations of fishing activities carried out with children and adults and weekly interviews on productivity carried out during twelve months (n = 272 individuals). Results of this study highlight that fishing, and most specifically dam fishing, a collective women fishing technique, bears a specific place in Baka society. In contrast with hunting, whose value is mostly associated to the cultural valorization of the wild meat, the cultural importance of fishing is largely based on the activity in itself, through its socio-cultural dimension. Dam fishing creates a specific space where, in the absence of men, women create social cohesion through exchanges and sharing. Furthermore, dam fishing represents a privileged space for learning, because it allows not only the transmission of ethnoichthyological knowledge, but also the transmission of other aspects of cultural knowledge that shape the early gender differentiation between boys and girls. This paper aims to highlight the socio-cultural value of fishing activities in the livelihood of contemporary forest hunter-gatherers.

The languages and peoples of the Müller Mountains A contribution to the study of the origins of Borneo’s nomads and their languages

The Muller and northern Schwaner mountain ranges are home to a handful of tiny, isolated groups (Aoheng, Hovongan, Kereho, Semukung, Seputan), altogether totaling about 5,000 persons, which are believed to have been forest hunter-gatherers in a distant or recent past. Linguistic data were collected among these groups and other neighbouring groups between 1975 and 2010, leading to the delineation of two distinct clusters of languages of nomadic or formerly nomadic groups, which are called MSP (Muller-Schwaner Punan) and BBL (Bukat-Beketan-Lisum) clusters. These languages also display lexical affinity to the languages of various major Bornean settled farming groups (Kayan, Ot Danum). Following brief regional and particular historical sketches, their phonological systems and some key features are described and compared within the wider local linguistic setting, which is expected to contribute to an elucidation of the ultimate origins of these people and their languages.

Where goods are free but knowledge costs

Forest hunter-gatherers in Western Central Africa participate in an unusual economic system that transacts material production in a very different way to intellectual production. While material goods, such as food, tools or clothing, are generally freely given when demanded, intellectual goods, such as the right to perform specific rituals or to receive certain remedies, are exchanged for goods and money. These hunter-gatherer groups trade certain types of knowledge for material goods with each other, but never trade material goods for other material goods with each other, despite doing so with neighbouring farmers. They simply demand them from one another. The distribution of key aspects of this economic system across linguistic and international frontiers suggests that it is likely to have great antiquity. The hunter-gatherer ritual system is valued for immediately producing goods. This contrasts with cult associations among farming societies in Central and West Africa that focus on ensuring that goods ...

Dense Wild Yam Patches Established by Hunter-Gatherer Camps: Beyond the Wild Yam Question, Toward the Historical Ecology of Rainforests

Prior to the 1980s, most researchers believed that the African forest hunter-gatherers, or Pygmies, were the original inhabitants of the central African rainforests. It was assumed that their close social, economic, and ecological relationships with neighboring agricultural societies did not date back long, and that they had previously lived solely through foraging wild forest products. The same is true for forest hunter-gatherers on other continents. However, Headland (1987) and Bailey et al. (1989) noted that no previous studies had produced sound evidence that pure hunter-gatherer subsistence was possible in any rainforests worldwide, and they argued that it was not, and had never been, possible to live in such areas while solely depending on wild products. Although rainforests contain vast numbers of species and huge biomass, consumable resources for humans, especially sources of calories, seem to be scarce and dispersed. Therefore, they argue, hunter-gatherers adapted to live in rainforests only after they began obtaining agricultural crops from cultivators. This hypothesis was called the “wild yam question” by Headland (1987) because the availability of wild yams was considered to be the key factor that determined whether pure hunter-gatherer subsistence in rainforests was viable. Two opposing arguments have arisen from studies in different regions of the Congo Basin. Hart and Hart (1986) concluded that it was extremely difficult for the Mbuti in the Ituri forest in the eastern Congo Basin to live without agricultural crops, particularly in the dry season and the early rainy season when wild nuts and honey were not available. On the other hand, Bahuchet et al. (1991), Hladik and Dounias (1993), and Sato (2001, 2006) argued that for the Aka and Baka in the western Congo Basin enough wild yams existed for their subsistence. These studies were principally based on investigations of the density of wild yams, and lacked detailed descriptions of the use of wild yams. Therefore, the issue of whether exploitation of wild yams, including searching for them, digging them up, transporting them to the camp, and cooking and consuming them, could have been practiced in everyday life remains inconclusive (cf. Bailey and Headland 1991). Archaeological studies have provided powerful evidence indicating the existence of humans in the African rainforests before the beginning of agriculture (Mercader 2003a, b; Mercader and Marti 2003). Unfortunately, they did not identify the foods upon which the ancient forest hunter-gatherers depended. They referred to ecological and anthropological studies that suggested ancient hunter-gatherers would have eaten wild nuts and meat, both of which were considered to have limited availability (Hart and Hart 1986). The simplest and most explicit way to demonstrate if and how hunter-gatherers can live on a diet consisting mostly of wild yams is to actually observe it. During fieldwork with the Baka in southeastern Cameroon, I (2006a; 2009a) recorded all of the harvests during long-term and large-scale hunting-and-gathering camps (molongo in the Baka language) in the dry and early rainy season, i.e., the period during which the forest was thought to be barren (Hart and Hart 1986), and found that the forest provided a plentiful food supply, 65 % of which (on a calorie basis) was made up of wild yams, and in particular annual species. Furthermore, Sato et al. (2012) undertook controlled hunting-and-gathering camping with Baka informants and demonstrated that annual yams are a staple food throughout the year. However, the question remains as to how yams have become so densely distributed in this area. I (2009a) noted that, within the area containing numerous yam patches, small settlements had been created before the colonial period. Moreover, the forests of Cameroon have been considerably disturbed by shifting cultivation for centuries (Chujo 1992; Van Gemerden et al. 2003), and contain many trees that prefer a disturbed environment (Yasuoka 2009b). Therefore, it is possible that forest disturbances via shifting cultivation might have affected the distribution of light-demanding annual species of wild yam (Yasuoka 2009a). It is of interest whether such disturbances were indispensable for the development of sufficient yam patches to support the hunter-gatherers. In 2012, a Baka informant told me that he had passed by molongo campsites where around 100 people had consumed numerous yams in 2002 and 2005 (Yasuoka 2006a, 2009a) and found dense distributions of wild yams that had regenerated from the inedible parts of tubers discarded during cooking. Hence, for the present study, I revisited these campsites. By adding quantitative data obtained from previous studies, it was possible to determine whether the actions of hunter-gatherers themselves can generate sufficient yam patches for the annual molongo lifestyle simply through the exploitation and subsequent dispersal of wild yams. This examination moves beyond previous issues regarding the notion of pure hunter-gatherer subsistence to the perspective of an historical ecology that focuses on the history of interaction between humans and resources.

Political economic reorganization among non-state societies: A case study using Middle Holocene mortuary data from the Cis-Baikal, Russia

The extraordinary record of prehistoric funeral activities in Russia’s Cis-Baikal region provides an opportunity to study changes in political strategies that boreal forest hunter–gatherers employed at these events in the Middle Holocene. I use published data on burial treatments (quantities of grave goods, presence of exotic materials, burial layouts) from 10 Late Neolithic (henceforth referred to as “LN,” 4000–3000BC) and 11 Early Bronze Age (“EBA,” 3000–2000BC) cemeteries to explore important and previously undetected shifts in the ways that funerals during these periods articulated with political life. LN groups used funerals to emphasize affiliation with corporate institutions, while EBA funeral participants employed political strategies focused on displaying wealth. Current evidence indicates that groups on the western peripheries of the Cis-Baikal started employing semi-nomadic pastoral subsistence practices at the time of the LN-EBA transition, and I suggest that these groups presented new opportunities for Cis-Baikal inhabitants. Interactions with mobile, food-producing groups may have indirectly stimulated indigenous populations to redefine funeral gatherings as venues appropriate for cultivating long-distance economic and political support through competitive displays of wealth.

African Pygmies, What’s Behind a Name?

African Pygmies, What’s Behind a Name? Paul Verdu and Giovanni Destro-Bisol Keywords African Pygmy, Genetic Diversity, Biological Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Pygmy Stature, Linguistics, Evolution, Adaptation, Interdisciplinary Perspectives Numerous populations spread out across Central Africa were named Pygmies by Western explorers, since the 19th century, in reference to the mythical Pygmy population from Homer (“A people of short stature at war with migrating birds,” Iliad, song 3, v. 1–6). For more than 40 years, Pygmy populations have attracted the interest of biological anthropologists because they are seen as a lively example that the adaptation to the environment shapes the diversity of external physical or physiological characters (e.g., Campbell and Tishkoff 2010; Froment 1993; Perry and Dominy 2009). Some biological anthropologists and geneticists wrongly perceived Central African Pygmies as a homogeneous group with similar cultural, morphological and biological features, and somewhat opposed to non-Pygmy populations (often designated as “Bantu populations,” though they do not necessarily speak Bantu languages which Pygmy populations often speak). This view may be seen as the consequence of two misleading notions widespread in Western culture. First, the prevalent historical use of the single exogenous term “Pygmy” to designate more than twenty human groups from the Congo Basin suggests that common historical, cultural, and even biological or morphological features are shared by Central African Pygmies. Second, Pygmy populations are often viewed as being exclusively forest hunter-gatherers, isolated from non-Pygmy farmers, and living in the same way as ancestral human populations did before the Neolithic revolution. Since the 1960s, scientific research has repeatedly challenged such stereotypes. For instance, cultural anthropologists observed that the various Pygmy populations do not share a common myth of origin. Most of them do not know each other and are unaware of a common designation as “Pygmies” from [End Page 1] outsiders; in fact, the various Aka, Baka, Bongo, Efe (…) Pygmy populations are not a federated group of populations (Bahuchet 1993; Hewlett 1996). Additionally, physical anthropologists have observed a wide diversity of average height across African Pygmy populations and found no height discontinuity between Pygmies and non-Pygmies—some neighboring non-Pygmy populations also are of short stature (Froment 1993; Hiernaux 1974). Finally, highlights are: Pygmies are not exclusively hunter-gatherers—they often practice fishing and agriculture (e.g., Bahuchet et al. 1989; Bahuchet 1992; Hewlett 1996)—and Pygmies are not isolated from neighboring non-Pygmy populations—these groups of populations have close socio-economic relationships including intermarriages (e.g., Bahuchet and Guillaume 1982; Hewlett 1996; Joiris 2003; Kazadi 1981; Turnbull 1965). The Short Stature of African Pygmies The issues raised by the common view that Pygmies form a uniform group are best (but not only) exemplified by extensive research focusing on the short stature of these populations. Three “classical” hypotheses were proposed to explain this phenotype: an adaptation to the hot and humid environment of the rainforest (Cavalli-Sforza 1986), an adaptation to the difficult mobility in a densely forested environment (Diamond 1991), or, finally, the outcome of the scarcity of food resources in the forest (Bailey et al. 1989). A fourth hypothesis was recently proposed: The short stature of Pygmy populations could be an adaptation to the earlier onset of reproductive life in a context of high rates of mortality from parasitism and poor nutrition (Migliano et al. 2007). While being relevant approaches to the understanding of Pygmy height, each one of these hypotheses fails to explain the variability of adult stature observed today within and among the various Central African Pygmy populations when considered separately. Nor can such theories account for the differential stature between specific Pygmy and neighboring non-Pygmy populations that live in comparable climatic, nutritional, or parasitic environments (Becker et al. 2010; Froment 1993; Perry and Dominy 2009). In fact, understanding the evolution of stature differences across Central African populations requires a tremendous effort in gathering much more anthropometrical, physiological, and demographic data than those currently available and previously used. More specifically, one must gather longitudinal data in the various populations designated as Pygmies instead of taking a single Pygmy group (e.g., the widely studied Aka from Central African Republic) as being representative of all Pygmies across Central Africa (Becker et al...

African Pygmies, What's Behind a Name?

Numerous populations spread out across Central Africa have been named Pygmies by Western explorers, since the 19th century, in reference to the mythical Pygmy population from Homer (A people of short stature at war with migrating birds, Iliad, song 3, v. 1-6). For more than forty years, Pygmy populations have attracted the interest of biological anthropologists because they were seen as the lively example that the adaptation to the environment shapes the diversity of external physical or physiological characters (e.g. Froment 1993; Perry and Dominy 2009; Campbell and Tishkoff 2010). Some biological anthropologists and geneticists wrongly perceived Central African Pygmies as a homogeneous group with similar cultural, morphological and biological features, and somewhat opposed to Non-Pygmy populations (often designated as “Bantu populations”, though they do not necessarily speak Bantu languages which Pygmy populations often speak). This view may be seen as the consequence of two misleading notions widespread in the Western culture. First, the prevalent historical use of the single exogenous term “Pygmy” to designate more than twenty human groups from the Congo Basin, de facto suggests that common historical, cultural, and even biological or morphological features are shared by Central African Pygmies. Second, Pygmy populations are often viewed as being exclusively forest hunter-gatherers, isolated from Non-Pygmy farmers, and living in the same way as ancestral human populations did before the Neolithic revolution. Since the 1960's, such stereotypes have been repeatedly challenged by scientific research. For instance, cultural anthropologists observed that the various Pygmy populations do not share a common myth of origin. Most of them do not know each other and are unaware of a common designation as Pygmies from outsiders; in fact the various Aka, Baka, Bongo, Efe (...) Pygmy populations are not a federated group of populations (Bahuchet 1993; Hewlett 1996). Additionally, physical anthropologists have observed the wide diversity of average height across African Pygmy populations and found no height discontinuity between Pygmies and Non-Pygmies—some neighbouring Non-Pygmy populations being also of short stature (Hiernaux 1974, Froment 1993). Finally, it has been highlighted that Pygmies are not exclusive hunter-gatherers, as they often practice fishing and agriculture (e.g. Bahuchet et al. 1989; Bahuchet 1992; Hewlett 1996) and, further challenging stereotypes, Pygmies are not isolated from neighbouring Non-Pygmy populations since these groups of populations have close socioeconomic relationships including intermarriages (e.g. Turnbull 1965; Kazadi 1981; Bahuchet and Guillaume 1982; Hewlett 1996; Joiris 2003).

From foraging to farming among present-day forest hunter-gatherers: consequences on diet and health

SUMMARY Throughout history, forests dwellers have adapted to permanent changes of forest ecosystems that, in essence, are dynamic. Accordingly, they have long served as models of how humans lived when their lifestyles and genetic endowment were complementary. What is now commonly described as the “paleodiet” tends to be put forward as a benchmark for present-day efforts to promote health and prevent nutritional diseases, even in industrialized countries. Although forest ecosystems provide food and medicines to forest dwellers, over the last half-century these ecosystems have undergone unprecedented pressure to make way for economic growth and industrialization, often at the cost of ecological functions that may affect human health, both in short term (i.e. increase in infectious diseases) and long term (incidence of global change). As radical alterations occur such as deforestation, modification of resource availability, and the penetration of cash economies, forest dwellers encounter increasing difficult...

The Variety of Forest Vegetations in Southeastern Cameroon,with Special Reference to the Av ailability of Wild Yams for the Forest Hunter-Gatherers

absTraCT annually reproducing wild yam species (Dioscorea praehensilis and D. semperflorens) are considered to be the most important food for hunter-gatherer subsistence in terms of energy sources in the central african rainforests. despite their importance in the rainforest hunter-gatherer’s diet, annual yams are not widely distributed over the forest but locally concentrated in particular areas. in this study, i carried out vegetation censuses in two areas, one with abundant annual yam patches and one with few in southeastern Cameroon. The results indicate that the area with abundant annual yam patches is closely associated with the semi-deciduous forest, while the area with few patches was associated with the evergreen forest. Thus the difference in vegetation seems to affect the distribution and the availability of annual yam patches. however, recent studies have found evidence of historical human interventions that may have influenced the formation of semi-deciduous forest over the Congo Basin. Therefore, the degree of human influence on the distribution of the semi-deciduous forest itself, as well as that of annual yam patches, should be carefully examined to explain the abundance of annual yams.

Climate Change and the Origin and Development of Rice Cultivation in the Yangtze River Basin, China

The forest hunter-gatherers of the middle Yangtze River basin, who were the first to invent pottery and led a sedentary lifestyle, may have begun to cultivate rice during the Bølling-Allerød interstadial global warming period. The earliest rice cultivation may have dated back to 14,000 calibrated (cal.) years before present (YBP). The global warming at 9000 cal. YBP in the early Holocene brought the development of the rice cultivation to the middle Yangtze River basin. On the other hand, ancient rice-cultivating and piscatorial society met a crisis at 4200-4000 cal. YBP that was characterized by a significant cooling of the climate. This climate deterioration led the northern wheat/barley-cultivating pastoral people to migrate to the south and invade, ultimately bringing about the collapse of the rice-cultivating and piscatorial society in the Yangtze River basin.

The Case for Rainforest Foragers: The Starch Record at Niah Cave, Sarawak

A study of preserved starch grains from sedimentary sequences at Niah Cave, Sarawak, Borneo, reveals direct evidence for the use of rainforest plants rich in digestible carbohydrates. Plants identified include several species of Aroids (Alocasia sp., Cyrtosperma sp.), at least one species of yam (Dioscorea sp.), and the pith of sago palm (cf. Caryota mitis, Eugeissona utilis). Starch grains from a total of fourteen recurring types indicate that a wide range of starch-rich plants are present in Pleistocene occupation sediments from the cave, and await identification with a more comprehensive reference collection of tropical species. The technique of starch extraction from archaeological sediments presents archaeologists with a new and powerful tool for investigating the past diet of tropical forest hunter-gatherers.

Hunter-Gatherer Culture Change and Continuity in the Middle Holocene of the Cis-Baikal, Siberia

Boreal forest hunter-gatherers who lived in the Lake Baikal region of Siberia between 9000 and 3000 years ago left behind a rich record of mortuary and habitation sites. In this article, we employ the results of human osteological, stable isotope, and faunal analyses to formulate an hypothesis about discontinuity in the development of Cis-Baikal hunter-gatherers. These data are further used to arrive at more specific working hypotheses on contrasting subsistence, mobility, and social interaction patterns of the two cultures that inhabited the region at different times. We then provide a new model of culture change and continuity that features an intriguing 700-800-year gap between these two groups' records of occupation within a context of practically no environmental change.

Cooperative Reproduction in Ituri Forest Hunter-Gatherers: Who Cares for Efe Infants?

Cooperative Reproduction in Ituri Forest Hunter-Gatherers: Who Cares for Efe Infants?

Wild yams revisited: Is independence from agriculture possible for rain forest hunter-gatherers?

The hypothesis that energy-rich wild plant foods are too scarce in rain forest to allow subsistence by foraging peoples independently of agriculture lacks a firm empirical basis. Data on availability of wild plant foods such as wild yams are sorely lacking, and where quantitative information is provided to support the hypothesis, it usually concerns extent of use of wild plant foods: low availability is tacitly inferred from low use. We explore the alternative hypothesis that “extent of use” underestimates availability of wild yams and other wild plant foods; these foods are present in large enough quantities to support hunter-gatherers, but have become increasingly neglected with increasing availability of cultivated plant foods. Thus, the subsistence of contemporary rain forest foraging peoples, in which extensive relationships with sedentary farmers appear to be universal, may be a somewhat distorted reflection of their subsistence in the pre-agricultural past. Drawing on data from ecology, archeology, ethnohistory, and linguistics, we argue that pygmy foraging peoples of the western Congo basin were present in rain forest environments before the advent of farming villagers.

Two Patterns of Chorus among the Efe, Forest Hunter-Gatherers in Northeastern Zaire: Why Do They Love to Sing?

Two Patterns of Chorus among the Efe, Forest Hunter-Gatherers in Northeastern Zaire: Why Do They Love to Sing?

The wild yam question: How well could independent hunter-gatherers live in a tropical rain forest ecosystem?

It has been generally assumed until recently that tropical rain forests are food-rich biomes for human foragers, and that prehistoric hunter-gatherers once lived completely independent of cultivated foods in such environments. An alternative hypothesis that such forests are actually food-poor for humans is proposed here. Specifically, that wild starch foods such as yams were so scarce and so hard to extract that human foragers could not have lived in such biomes without recourse to cultivated foods. The symbiotic relationship found today between tropical forest hunter-gatherers and farmers is not a recent phenomenon, but evolved long ago as an adaptive strategy for successfully exploiting the tropical forest.

The caloric returns to food collecting: Disruption and change among the Batak of the Philippine tropical forest

The changing economy of a group of tropical forest hunter-gatherers is examined. The Batak of the Philippines today earn many calories by participating in an external market system; once they would have earned these calories within the traditional subsistence system. Gathering and selling Manila copal to purchase rice has partially displaced digging wild yams as the major source of subsistence. Data show that this change has reduced the productive efficiency, of human labor. The Batak must work longer and perform more difficult tasks to obtain the same number of calories by collecting copal as they can obtain by digging wild yams, even as they must today work longer hours anyway to earn necessary cash to satisfy new, nonfood consumer wants. The growing dietary importance of rice is only one aspect of changing food consumption patterns that may be having an unfavorable impact on Batak nutrition.