Foragers

The transfer of food among group members is a ubiquitous feature of small-scale forager and forager-agricultural populations. The uniqueness of pervasive sharing among humans, especially among unrelated individuals, has led researchers to evaluate numerous hypotheses about the adaptive functions and patterns of sharing in different ecologies. This article attempts to organize available cross-cultural evidence pertaining to several contentious evolutionary models: kin selection, reciprocal altruism, tolerated scrounging, and costly signaling. Debates about the relevance of these models focus primarily on the extent to which individuals exert control over the distribution of foods they acquire, and the extent to which donors receive food or other fitness-enhancing benefits in return for shares given away. Each model can explain some of the variance in sharing patterns within groups, and so generalizations that ignore or deny the importance of any one model may be misleading. Careful multivariate analyses and cross-cultural comparisons of food transfer patterns are therefore necessary tools for assessing aspects of the sexual division of labor, human life history evolution, and the evolution of the family. This article also introduces a framework for better understanding variation in sharing behavior across small-scale traditional societies. I discuss the importance of resource ecology and the degree of coordination in acquisition activities as a key feature that influences sharing behavior.

Graeber and Wengrow's sprawling new history of freedom has considerable strengths: its emphasis on formative processes that unfolded before literate civilizations appeared, its global reach, and its skepticism about the connection between state power and civilization. But it also suffers from serious shortcomings: the authors' commitment to an excessively idealist view of historical dynamics, their use of rhetorical strategies that misguide their audience, and their resultant inability to account for broad trajectories of human development.

After Frank Fenenga’s death (April 7, 1994), his son Gerrit discovered an unfinished manuscript co-authored by his father and Francis (Fritz) Riddell. It pertained to a Native California rain-making bundle from Kern County. Included with the manuscript were Frank’s field notes, a photograph, sketches of the artifacts, and a letter dated January 18, 1980 from Robert Merriam, Curator of the Kern Valley Museum in Kernville. Merriam was interested in obtaining information about the bundle, since he had been informed that it might have been part of a larger assemblage, a portion of which is currently on exhibit at the Kern Valley Museum. This bundle is on loan from one of the local Indians, a granddaughter of Esteban Miranda. Esteban Miranda, a Tübatulabal chief (timiwal) who died about October 13, 1942, was the stepson of a Chumash shaman from Tejon who appears to have first owned and used the bundle. The editors researched the original manuscript and found that Frank had presented a paper on the subject at the 1978 annual Society for California Archaeology meetings. With Gerrit Fenenga’s permission, the editors have chosen to edit and complete the unfinished work in order to honor the memory of Frank Fenenga and Francis Riddell. With the exception of some new information, this article remains their work.


The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate and deduce the varied lifeways of Early Holocene foragers in southern Scandinavia. By taking an interdisciplinary approach, zooarchaeological data have been applied to the study of different aspects of Early and Middle Mesolithic subsistence, in order to frame a discussion concerning our current understanding of culture and life in early north European societies. Three different sites/areas are the focus: Norje Sunnansund, Huseby
Klev and Gotland/Gisslause. However, all available material from the chosen temporal and spatial frame have been incorporated to enable holistic discussions. The three focus areas combined comprise all available coastal settlements with well-preserved organic material from the Early Mesolithic period, which has led to discussions centred on the use of aquatic resources and the importance of fish.
To address the different aspects of Early and Middle Mesolithic subsistence, multiple approaches have been taken, whereby zooarchaeological methods have been combined with statistical, chemical, physical and ethnographical tools for analysis. The focus has varied between fish storage and conservation practice, by presenting evidence for delayed-return subsistence strategies through means of large-scale fish fermentation, and discussions concerning the evidence for a delayed-return lifestyle and sedentism, through the study of zooarchaeological assemblages. Furthermore, taphonomy is highlighted and discussed in order to address the many biases affecting the recovery of freshwater fish bones and the consequences for detecting a freshwater fish-based diet. Pioneer subsistence strategies are studied, and changes through time are highlighted in marine coastal regions. In addition, the reservoir effect in radiocarbon dating (14C) of human bones has been examined to evaluate the consequences of a freshwater reservoir effect stemming from a large dietary input of freshwater fish. Furthermore, stable isotopes values, δ13C and δ15N, in the collagen from all available Early and Middle Mesolithic humans have also been analysed and modelled, in order to evaluate the importance of each individual protein source in the diet.
The results from the different approaches taken indicate that humans relied on fish to a higher degree and from an earlier date than previously assumed. This has implications for how Early Holocene societies are interpreted; indicating the use of delayed-return subsistence strategies, diminishing mobility and emerging sedentism already existed during the Early Mesolithic period. Overall, the results of this thesis suggest a growing territoriality, which implies that the emergence of social stratification is conceivable at an early stage of Scandinavian prehistory and offers an insight into the lifestyle of Early Holocene foragers at latitudes around 55–59° N.

"Our understanding of the Later Stone Age (LSA) on the Greater Mapungubwe Landscape has until now been fairly limited. However, it is a landscape upon which foragers witnessed and partook in agriculturalist state formation between AD 900 and 1300, altering their cultural behaviour to suit their changing social and political topography. Nowhere else in southern Africa were foragers part of such developments. For this project a landscape approach was used to study the various changes in the regional LSA record as well as the way in which foragers interacted with farmers.
In order to address these issues, data were obtained from an archaeological survey followed by an excavation of seven sites in north-eastern Botswana, part of the Greater Mapungubwe Landscape. These finds indicate that the local forager record varies chronologically and spatially, which had not previously been recorded. Foragers also used a variety of site types and in each a different forager expression was deposited, providing indications of their changing settlement pattern. Notably, this included a gradual movement into agriculturalist homesteads beginning by at least AD 1000 and concluding by AD 1300, when the Mapungubwe capital was abandoned. Thus, interactions, at least in some cases, led to assimilation. There is also clear evidence of exchange with agriculturalists at many of the excavated sites, but this does not always seem to be related to their proximity with one another.
Performing a landscape study has also made it possible to make two general conclusions with regard to LSA research. First, these data challenge ethnography, displaying its limitations particularly with linking modern Bushman practices, such as aggregation and dispersal patterns or hxaro gift exchange, to LSA foragers. Second, a full landscape understanding combines the archaeology of multiple cultural landscapes and in this case also crosses national borders, two themes often neglected in southern African archaeological studies."

This article reviews four books on hunters and gatherers. It begins with a discussion of the debates about the concept of hunters and gatherers.  Theoretical approaches to hunter-gatherer studies are examined briefly. It concludes with a discussion of indigeneity and the economic, social, environmental and political challenges that hunter-gatherers and former foragers are facing.

Two obsidian bifaces were discovered in eastern California near or in the Coso Range of the western Mojave Desert.  The Portuguese Bench biface core was identified on the eastern skirt of the Sierra Nevada near a notable village site. It fits well with the Little Lake biface cache previously reported. The Little Lake cache and the Portuguese Bench biface core have similar obsidian hydration rim measurements that date to the very end of the Haiwee Period or the earliest years of the Marana era (ca. AD 1100-1400).

A later stage Cactus Flat biface is a result of human behavior that occurred 12,000 years ago or earlier. The Cactus Flat biface was originally quarried 130 miles to the northeast at the Bodie quarry and was then carried to the Coso area.  The Cactus Flat biface exhibits many characteristics in overall morphology and reduction strategy  similar to those found in Clovis  and early Paleoindian flaked stone collections.

Identification and analysis of a series of corner-notched and basal-notched projectile point petroglyph images located in the Coso Range of eastern California now provide more definitive evidence that these particular glyphs date to the period when Elko and Humboldt style dart points were in use. Two direct XRF dates support this determination. The XRF dates indicate ages of 2750 plus or minus 690 cal years BP for both these images. This provides a general age range for these corner notched and basal notched dart point depictions from about cal 1500 BC to AD 1. The latter age range is synchronous with the end of a period of dart and atlatl use and the now more widely accepted dates for the initiation of Rose Spring Series arrow points. The latter are now better understood as initiating about 2000 years before precent or cal AD 1.

Abstract. Recent interpretations of rock art have often focused on these images as a somewhat exclusive record of shamanic experiences. Consideration of decorated animal-human figures (Patterned Body Anthropomorphs - PBAs) within the Coso Rock Art Complex in eastern California, in conjunction with the mythology of Kawaiisu, other Numic and Tubatulabal groups, suggests an alternative (or perhaps complementary) view. Coso PBAs may be representations of an important supernatural — possibly the netherworld master of the animals. This interpretation, if valid, provides further support for Coso rock art as a manifestation of a hunting religion complex. Such a complex prominently featured animal ceremonialism and functioned in part as a means to envision a supernatural agent that had special powers controlling the movements of animals and restoring game to the human world.

One of the more spectacular expressions of prehistoric rock art in all of the Western Hemisphere is the petroglyph concentration in the Coso Range of eastern California. These glyphs have played a prominent role in attempts to understand forager religious iconography. Four decades ago, Heizer and Baumhoff (1962) concluded that Great Basin petroglyphs were associated with hunting large game and were intended to supernaturally increase success in the hunt. Similarly, in their seminal work Grant et al. (1968) concluded that the mountain sheep drawings of the Coso Region bolstered the “hunting magic” hypothesis.
!However, this hunting magic hypothesis has become increasingly marginalized by a prevailing view that considers most rock art as an expression of individual shamanistic endeavor.1 This paper explores comparative ethnologic and archaeological evidence supporting the hunting magic hypothesis.
!I place this explanatory framework in a fuller context based on a contemporary understanding of comparative hunter gather religion and the complexity of forager symbolism. The paper argues that the preponderance of Coso images are conventionalized iconography associated with a sheep cult ceremonial complex. This model is not entirely inconsistent with models interpreting the Coso drawings as metaphoric images correlated with individual shamanic vision quests. A sythetic framework applying both models is suggested.

Harsh conditions during development may alter the human adult phenotype in ways that affect vulnerability to disease and death. This study’s objectives are A) to explore the utility of neural canal size and appendicular osteoarthritis as prospective indicators of developmental stress; B) to test for developmental stress effects in a foraging population with no significant socioeconomic stratification; and C) to explore temporal variation in neuroskeletal size and joint degeneration. The study sample consists of 143 Later Stone Age foragers (M=75, F=64, I=4) from the Cape Floristic Region of southern Africa. 135 cases have radiocarbon dates between 9100 and 560 uncalibrated years BP. Osteoarthritis was quantified with an ordinal scoring procedure. Relationships among radiocarbon date, measures of body and neural canal size, OA, and age at death were explored using logistic and ordinary least squares regression, independence tests, and means contrasts. Age, sex, and body size were controlled where appropriate. A positive relationship is observed between age at death and both body size and ML NC diameter, but reaches statistical significance only in the latter case (OR=1.74, 95% CI=1.08–2.82). The effect is detected in both sexes but odds ratios are greater and p values smaller in females (Male OR=1.50, 95% CI=0.82–2.73; Female OR=2.14, 95% CI=1.02–4.50). Age at death is the only significant predictor for both presence and severity of osteoarthritis. No significant relationship is observed between age and anteroposterior diameter. Average mediolateral diameter of the neural canal declines between 3000–2000BP and increases slightly afterwards (β 1 = −0.83, β 2 = 0.68, adjusted R 2 = 0.06, SEE=0.99). This quadratic curve is consistent with published accounts of temporal change in average body size. No temporal pattern is identified in osteoarthritis.

A surprising number of scratched rock art designs are found throughout the Great Basin but are most abun- dant in the Coso Region of eastern California. Bettinger and Baumhoff (1982) were some of the earliest scholars to identify this unusual style of prehistoric rock art images and forward hypotheses related to the meaning, function and dating of this enigmatic style of rock drawing. Recently a number of researchers have continued studies of this type of rock art rendering and have begun to develop models of its authorship. Several research- ers have tendered tentative suggestions that this rock art style was crafted by women.
In this presentation, we examine such a novel notion and the implications for such a model. Also, we consider how such a perspective might also be formally evaluated. Additionally, we reconsider the results of previous studies that have documented Coso Range Scratched Rock Art and provide new information bearing on the au- thorship issue from other sites in the Coso Region. Formal evaluation of the archaeological contexts and land- scape associations for this type of rock art provide us with contextual evidence to further our understanding of this important rock art tradition.

This article reviews four books on hunters and gatherers. It begins with a discussion of the debates over the concept of hunter-gatherers. Theoretical approaches to hunter-gather studies are examined briefly. The view then assesses the four books and the various subjects which they address. These subjects include the issue of ethnographic analogy, diversity, evolution, and archaeological perspectives as well as understanding contemporary hunter-gatherer societies. Additional topics include land use, the assignment of meaning to landscapes, way finding, territoriality, boundary-marking, and networks. Social learning, teaching, and information dissemination are discussed, with emphasis on some of the things that are learned, such as sharing, fair treatment of others, the importance of compassion, and moral values. Hunter-gatherer studies have evolved to the point where both archaeologists and anthropologists are taking into careful consideration the need to consider both past and present in their investigations and to focus also on the non-hunter-gatherer societies with whom they are interacting. As people who defined themselves as indigenous, hunter-gatherers are well aware of the social, economic, environmental and political challenges that they are facing, and they are seeking to address these challenges along with support organizations and researchers in an attempt to ensure their long-term security and well-being.

Newberry Cave most likely represents a particular striking and persuasive example of what Coulam and Schroedl suggest are  sites of ritual and ceremonial “increase totemism”.  A men’s bighorn sheep totemic hunting society camped here and conducted  rituals to promote the life and health of a key supernatural ancestor animal person - the desert bighorn sheep.  Their ceremonies ensured the propagation of this key game animal and the perpetuation of their society.

Excavations ofprehistoric and Contact-period houses on the southern Northwest Coast of North America have exposed very lar;geinterior pit complexes. The complexes are either long trenches or rmvs ofpits beneath the housefloors. They are associated with substantial permanently occupied houses dated to between 300 CAL E.G. and A.D. 1830. The pits add significantly to the storage potentials of these houses and suggest surplus production.

Thiamethoxam is a widely used neonicotinoid pesticide that, as agonist of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, has been shown to elicit a variety of sublethal effects in honey bees. However, information concerning neonicotinoid effects on honey bee thermoregulation is lacking. Thermoregulation is an essential ability for the honey bee that guarantees the success of foraging and many in-hive tasks, especially brood rearing. We tested the effects of acute exposure to thiamethoxam (0.2, 1, 2 ng/bee) on the thorax temperatures of foragers exposed to low (22 °C) and high (33 °C) temperature environments. Thiamethoxam significantly altered honey bee thorax temperature at all doses tested; the effects elicited varied depending on the environmental temperature and pesticide dose to which individuals were exposed. When bees were exposed to the high temperature environment, the high dose of thiamethoxam increased their tho-rax temperature 1–2 h after exposure. When bees were exposed to the low temperature, the higher doses of the neonicotinoid reduced bee thorax temperatures 60–90 min after treatment. In both experiments, the neonicotinoid decreased the temperature of bees the day following the exposure. After a cold shock (5 min at 4 °C), the two higher doses elicited a decrease of the thorax temperature, while the lower dose caused an increase, compared to the control. These alterations in thermoregulation caused by thiamethoxam may affect bee foraging activity and a variety of in-hive tasks, likely leading to negative consequences at the colony level. Our results shed light on sublethal effect of pesticides which our bees have to deal with.

This study draws on data from recent settlement surveys and new demographic data derived from repatriationrelated assessments of human remains in museums to examine the circumstances of the 1878-1880 famine on Saint Lawrence Island, Alaska. The human data consist of a biased sample of individuals dying at these settlements. We compare this sample to an Arctic-specific model of population structure in order to identify and estimate segments of the population missing from the sample. The settlement-specific population estimates from the human remains are combined with population estimates derived from settlement data to give an island-wide population projection. The pre-famine population estimates indicate that the 1878-1880 famine mortality was over 90%. This tragic reduction in human population necessitated adoption of new hunting strategies that changed settlement patterns on the island. Migration of YupÕik families from the Chukotka Peninsula after the famine is correlated with changes in house designs. This study suggests that cultural change was a significant feature of recovery from the famine and is an important factor in understanding cultural change in the archaeological record in the arctic.

"The study of northwest coast complex foragers--particularly those of the Greater Lower Columbia River region--assists general anthropology and anthropological archaeology in several ways: it identifies material correlates of one example of complex foragers, which may be useful in other analytical contexts, it assist in understanding the origins of inequality on the Northwest Coast and elsewhere by describing the precontact organization of labour, and it also assists in the understanding of how the unique sedentary foragers of the Lower Columbia region were economically organized in the early-contact period, partially as a test of the accuracy of historical reports. This report investigates the relationship between the organization of labour and usewear and artefact distributions from the floor areas of three aboriginal plank houses excavated in the Greater Lower Columbia River region. These houses date to the late precontact/early contact period, from ca. 1400 AD to 1830 AD. Lithic usewear analysis on tools excavated from these houses was used to identify the range and nature of extractive and maintenance activities carried out within the houses during occupation.

The Titicaca Basin of Peru and Bolivia has been occupied by humans for millennia and was home to one of the first major state societies in the Andes. Many foundations of state power, however, developed much earlier, during the Late Preceramic/Terminal Archaic Period (3000 – 1500 BC), when people initially began herding, marking territories, and creating new metallurgy technology. We present a skeletal analysis of 14 individuals dating between 3000 and 1500 BC from Muruqullu, an archaeological site on the Copacabana Peninsula of Bolivia. These are the first Preceramic burials documented for the peninsula and contribute to the relatively small sample of Preceramic bodies from the Andean highlands more broadly. From this sample, we suggest that highland foragers and early herders suffered little nutritional stress and had limited violent interactions, perhaps related to a relatively mobile lifestyle and utilisation of lake resources.

While agriculture has spread quite rapidly from the Levant to most parts of Europe during the sixth millennium, its adoption has been delayed to the fourth millennium in Northern Europe, an area inhabited by complex hunter-gatherers – mainly the Ertebølle culture. This hiatus leads to reject diffusion by migration or acculturation and to favor the integrationist approach in which explanatory models are describing contact between foragers and farmers and the shift to agriculture is relying on social competition between hunter-gatherers. We provide an alternative explanation of this shift, based on an economic mechanism related to trade between foragers and farmers. We demonstrate that the terms of trade of raw materials extracted and sold by foragers have a tendency to decline in the long term in relation to the food resources produced and sold by farmers. Neolithization of Northern Europe can therefore be viewed as the outcome of a long-term process based on trade in which hunter-gatherers get voluntary involved without forecasting that it will, in the end, constraint most of them to give up their way of life. Such explanation is consistent with the long period of contact between foragers and farmers provided by archaeological records and recent palaeogenetic studies.

Sleep is necessary for the survival of all mammalian life. In humans, recent investigations have generated critical data on the relationship between sleep and ecology in small-scale societies. Here, we report the technological and social strategies used to alter sleep environments and influence sleep duration and quality among a population of hunter-gatherers, the Hadza of Tanzania. Specifically, we investigated the effects that grass huts, sound levels, and fire had on sleep. We quantitatively compared thermal stress in outdoor environments to that found inside grass hut domiciles to test whether the huts function as thermoregulated microhabitats during the rainy season. Using physiological equivalent temperature (PET), we found that the grass huts provide sleep sites with less overall variation in thermal stress relative to outside baseline environments. We also investigated ambient acoustic measures of nighttime environments and found that sound significantly covaried with sleep-wake activity, with greater sound levels associating with less sleep. Finally, after controlling for ecological variables previously shown to influence sleep in this population, fire was shown to neither facilitate nor discourage sleep expression. Insofar as data among contemporary subtropical foragers can inform our understanding of past lifeways, we interpret our findings as suggesting that after the transition to full time terrestriality, it is likely that early Homo would have had novel opportunities to manipulate its environments in ways that could have significantly improved sleep quality. We further conclude that control over sleep environment would have been essential for migration to higher latitudes away from equatorial Africa.

Archaeological analyses of faunal assemblages often rely on rationale derived from the prey choice model to explain temporal and spatial changes in taxonomic measures of diversity and/or abundances. In this paper, we present analyses of ethnoarchaeological observations and bone assemblages created by Central African BoW and Aka forest foragers which show that diVerent small prey hunting technologies target speciWc suites of prey and that hunters vary their technological choice depending on their foraging goals. Analysis of ethnoarchaeological bone assemblages produced by the BoW and Aka shows that variability in target prey can create spatially distinct, but contemporaneous, faunal assemblages with diVerent diversity values and abundance indices. These data reveal important variation in how individuals within a contemporary human population rank prey and challenge current assumptions about the meaning of diversity and abundances measures in archaeological contexts. We argue that the use of diversity and abundance indices can obscure important intrasite variability in prehistoric foraging eVort and suggest strategies that might enhance current techniques. 

This paper reports on the results of zooarchaeological analysis of fauna from two stratified rockshelters at Ele Bor, 200 km east of Lake Turkana, Kenya. Ele Bor Site A, with radiocarbon determinations from 7000 to 1000 B P, yielded around 4000 identifiable bone specimens. The other site, Ele Bor M, yielded only a hundred bone specimens and will be discussed less extensively in this paper. Fauna from the EBA, although heavily modified by various taphonomic agents, testify to the strong continuity of a broad-based foraging pattern into the first millennium AD, the long stability of human use of a broad range of wild vertebrate species and to a stone-working tradition, augmented but not substantially modified by the introduction of ceramics and grinding equipment during the sixth to third millennium BC. Cette article présent des résultats de 1'analyses zooarquéologiques du faune de deux abris stratifiés à Ele Bor, situé 200 km à 1'est du Lac Turkana dans Kenya. Ele Bor Site A, avec datations du radiocarbon du 7000–1000 ans B.P., provient dans 1'environ de 4000 pièces identifiqués, et le de Ele Bor M, 100 pièces identifiques. Le faune de Ele Bor A, bien que modifiés par diverses processes taphonomiques, testifié à un continuité assez fort de subsistence bassé des especies vertébres indigènes, typiques d'environnements secs. Il n'ya pas d'évidences de adoptation de especies domestique, ni des plantes ni des animaux, jusqu'a 1'ultime millenaire avant présent.

Reconstruction of extinct hominin diets is currently a topic of much interest and debate, facilitated by new methods such as the analysis of dental calculus. It has been proposed, based on chemical analyses of calculus, that Neanderthals self-medicated, yet this conclusion has been questioned. Gastrophagy has been suggested as an alternative explanation for the Neanderthal data, based on ethnographic analogies, which show this practice to have been widespread in traditional extant Homo sapiens diets, and nutritional evidence for its benefits at high latitudes. Here we expand the discussion of the potential importance of gastrophagy in human evolution by considering its role for an extant group of tropical foragers, the Hadza of Tanzania, and questioning its role in the diets of extinct tropical hominin species. Gastrophagy is frequently practiced among the Hadza and adult men in particular consume substantial, seasonally variable, amounts of prey guts. In addition to the important fact that gastrophagy is not a rare event, this demographic information may be useful in interpreting evidence from archaeological samples. The consumption of semi-digested chyme would have allowed extinct hominins to gain calories from plant sources without the cost of digesting them, possibly contributing to the encephalisation and shrinking of the gut in genus Homo. As an easy to process food-source, chyme could have likewise been an important food source for the old and the young, potentially playing a part in reducing inter-birth intervals and increasing reproductive success in our lineage. Thus gastrophagy may have played a key part in human evolution and its potentially confounding signal should be considered in future dietary reconstructions.

For small-scale societies, transitions from self-sufficiency to cash-based labor in market economies have been associated with the exacerbation of existing, and the emergence of new, social incongruities. Social incongruity occurs when two or more of a person's status determinants (e.g. age, gender, wealth) conflict, resulting in reduced social status. A central focus of theory and research on social incongruity is the relationship between the cultural prototype of what is needed to live a good life-or lifestyle-and status determinants. Assessment of status determinants is challenging because of their relative nature at multiple levels of analysis. This study uses theory and methods from cognitive anthropology to investigate whether and how individual knowledge of a cultural lifestyle prototype conflicts with status determinants at two levels of economic transition among 101 adults from a small-scale society of forager-horticulturalists in Bolivian Amazonia, the Tsimane'. Results support cultural consensus in a 38-item model labeled market lifestyle (explaining 72.7% of sample variance). While the model includes both overlapping traditional (e.g. weaving) and market-related (e.g. education) items and behaviors, most market alternatives were rated higher. When market lifestyle was tested for social incongruity against other status determinants, only gender predicted variation. Thematically, when lifestyle was stratified by gender, men rated several items of relational wealth higher than women did. Analysis of model residual agreement revealed heterogeneity in the form of a syncretic lifestyle model (explaining 18.2% of additional variance). Participants whose knowledge better matched syncretic lifestyle rated traditional items and market alternatives closer to parity. Agreement with the syncretic model correlated with lower material wealth and less market integration. In sum, the findings document a modern, market-oriented form of Tsimane' lifestyle that varies ontologically from past modelling and ethnographic accounts in preferred forms of livelihood and wealth.

This study reconstructs systemic stress patterning using incremental microstructures of enamel in a subadult from the Yoshigo cemetery (3200 through 2800 BP), Aichi Prefecture, Japan, with the goal of providing an improved methodological and theoretical framework for interpreting systemic stress among Jomon people. High resolution impressions and replicas were collected for each anterior maxillary tooth. Each replica was studied under 50, 100, or 200Â magnification on a measuring microscope. Perikymata spacing and enamel surface profiles were recorded using specialized software. Linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) defects were identified as accentuated spacing in perikymata combined with a depression in the enamel surface. Each defect was placed within a chronological sequence based on decile location. Stress duration was estimated by counting the perikymata in the occlusal wall of each defect and multiplying that value by the modal periodicity for striae formation. Percentage of enamel growth disruption was estimated by dividing the number of perikymata within the occlusal wall of each matched defect by the total number of perikymata within the imbricational enamel. Eight LEH defects were chronologically matched. Chronology of LEH defects ranged between 1.2 through 3.5 years. Number of perikymata located within the occlusal wall of each defect ranged from one through 20. Estimated durations of stress ranged from 12 through 129.6 days. These durations overlapped with Neandertals, though Point Hope foragers had greater durations of stress with no overlap in interquartile ranges. Disrupted enamel growth ranged from 8.1% in the maxillary left canine to 50.7% in the maxillary right central incisor.

Hundreds of features have been recorded in the isostatically raised cobble beaches of coastal southern Labrador and some have also been recorded in western Notre Dame Bay, Newfoundland. Analysis points to at least three types of features that include pits for storage of food or gear, habitation features, and historic fish drying platforms or bawns (in French, greves). By far the most common are features thought to be food storage pits. Food storage has to date not been considered as an adaptive mechanism in the northeast. This paper begins a discussion of its centrality to subsistence strategies.

For small-scale societies, transitions from self-sufficiency to cash-based labor in market economies have been associated with the exacerbation of existing, and the emergence of new, social incongruities. Social incongruity occurs when two or more of a person's status determinants (e.g. age, gender, wealth) conflict, resulting in reduced social status. A central focus of theory and research on social incongruity is the relationship between the cultural prototype of what is needed to live a good life-or lifestyle-and status determinants. Assessment of status determinants is challenging because of their relative nature at multiple levels of analysis. This study uses theory and methods from cognitive anthropology to investigate whether and how individual knowledge of a cultural lifestyle prototype conflicts with status determinants at two levels of economic transition among 101 adults from a small-scale society of forager-horticulturalists in Bolivian Amazonia, the Tsimane'. Results support cultural consensus in a 38-item model labeled market lifestyle (explaining 72.7% of sample variance). While the model includes both overlapping traditional (e.g. weaving) and marketrelated (e.g. education) items and behaviors, most market alternatives were rated higher. When market lifestyle was tested for social incongruity against other status determinants, only gender predicted variation. Thematically, when lifestyle was stratified by gender, men rated several items of relational wealth higher than women did. Analysis of model residual agreement revealed heterogeneity in the form of a syncretic lifestyle model (explaining 18.2% of additional variance). Participants whose knowledge better matched syncretic lifestyle rated traditional items and market alternatives closer to parity. Agreement with the syncretic model correlated with lower material wealth and less market integration. In sum, the findings document a modern, market-oriented form of Tsimane' lifestyle that varies ontologically from past modelling and ethnographic accounts in preferred forms of livelihood and wealth.

In circumpolar regions, coastlines offer rich constellations of diverse resources and have long been a focus of human habitation. Despite the rich archaeological records that are located along many northern coastlines, there is a relatively limited understanding of the range of factors that informed local settlement strategies. Northern Norway has one of the world's longest and best-preserved archaeological records of coastal habitation due to post-glacial uplift. Occupation begins in the early Holocene and appears to peak in the mid-Holocene. Our aim in this paper is to investigate the constraints and opportunities that informed the mid-Holocene settlement patterns, between c. 5000 and 0 BC. We present new data that were generated by intensive field surveys and undertake a qualitative multiscalar analysis of site-locational choices, evaluating the influences of geography, topography and seasonal resource availability. Having identified stretches of the rugged coast as uninhabitable, we proceeded with analyses of the rest of the coastline. Our results indicate that all major settlements were sited to provide safe boat landing, good vantage points and shelter from storms. From these habitation sites, boat technology would have provided flexible access to diverse resources that were available throughout the year, and within a limited travel radius. We also demonstrate that these settlement strategies contrast with the way that the same coastlines were inhabited by pioneering groups in the early Holocene but appear to have some similarities with mid-Holocene coastal settlement patterns in Newfoundland and the Aleutian Islands. Overall, our results suggest that the multiple resources available along northern coastlines often enabled populations to occupy relatively localized areas for long periods. Longer-range mobility and interaction may instead have been primarily driven by socio-political factors rather than subsistence needs.