Applying Modes of Production Analysis to Non-State, or Anarchic, Societies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill Angelbeck
Keyword(s):  
Northwest Coast ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Coast Salish ◽  
Temporal Scales ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Subsistence Strategies ◽  
Production Analysis ◽  
Means Of Production ◽  
Seasonal Shifts ◽  
Family Groups

The concept of modes of production has been a constructive way to analyze state societies in archaeological history. Yet the utility for archaeologists working with non-state, or anarchic societies, can be quite generalized, mainly useful for broad temporal scales of analysis. To apply to non-state societies, I reorient modes of production from historical epochs to the microscale, evaluating the seasonal shifts of activity throughout the annual round. For complex hunter-gatherers, such as the Coast Salish of the Northwest Coast, modes of production shifted constantly season by season as they adjusted their subsistence strategies toward the availability of varied resources. In so doing, they implemented distinct means of production and varying relations of production to harness those resources most effectively. Some involved small-scale formations, with dispersed families (egalitarian and autonomous), while others involved corporate multi-family groups (hierarchical with ranks of authority), for instance, to process fish during annual salmon runs. In this way, Salish individuals engaged different modes of production throughout the year, each varying in levels of autonomy, which they often pursued. By focusing modes of production into particular modes, we can track the microscale revolutions that occur within broader historical epochs.

scholarly journals Accurate age estimation in small-scale societies

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (31) ◽  
pp. 8205-8210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoan Diekmann ◽  
Daniel Smith ◽  
Pascale Gerbault ◽  
Mark Dyble ◽  
Abigail E. Page ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Bayesian Approach ◽  
Age Estimation ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Monte Carlo Algorithm ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Ranking Order

Precise estimation of age is essential in evolutionary anthropology, especially to infer population age structures and understand the evolution of human life history diversity. However, in small-scale societies, such as hunter-gatherer populations, time is often not referred to in calendar years, and accurate age estimation remains a challenge. We address this issue by proposing a Bayesian approach that accounts for age uncertainty inherent to fieldwork data. We developed a Gibbs sampling Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm that produces posterior distributions of ages for each individual, based on a ranking order of individuals from youngest to oldest and age ranges for each individual. We first validate our method on 65 Agta foragers from the Philippines with known ages, and show that our method generates age estimations that are superior to previously published regression-based approaches. We then use data on 587 Agta collected during recent fieldwork to demonstrate how multiple partial age ranks coming from multiple camps of hunter-gatherers can be integrated. Finally, we exemplify how the distributions generated by our method can be used to estimate important demographic parameters in small-scale societies: here, age-specific fertility patterns. Our flexible Bayesian approach will be especially useful to improve cross-cultural life history datasets for small-scale societies for which reliable age records are difficult to acquire.

Social Networks and Stratagems of Nineteenth-Century Coast Salish Leaders

Ethnohistory ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-268
Author(s):  
Morgan Ritchie ◽  
Bruce Granville Miller
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Social Geography ◽  
Social Connections ◽  
Northwest Coast ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Coast Salish ◽  
Salish Sea ◽  
The Social

Abstract During the socially transformative mid-nineteenth century in the Salish Sea region of the Northwest Coast, a number of influential leaders emerged within Indigenous tribal groups. They played a significant role in reshaping the social geography of the region, blending emergent religious, commercial, and military bases for authority with more conventional Coast Salish strategies of patronage and generosity. The authors examine the lives and social connections of three Coast Salish leaders to illustrate how they were able to establish and maintain social networks across the region for their advantage and for the advantage of followers who had gravitated to them from surrounding shattered communities.

scholarly journals Human social organization during the Late Pleistocene: Beyond the nomadic-egalitarian model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manvir Singh ◽  
Luke Glowacki
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Human History ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Social Variation

Many researchers assume that until 10-12,000 years ago, humans lived in small, mobile, relatively egalitarian bands composed mostly of kin. This “nomadic-egalitarian model” informs evolutionary explanations of behavior and our understanding of how contemporary societies differ from those of our evolutionary past. Here, we synthesize research challenging this model and propose an alternative, the diverse histories model, to replace it. We outline the limitations of using recent foragers as models of Late Pleistocene societies and the considerable social variation among foragers commonly considered small-scale, mobile, and egalitarian. We review ethnographic and archaeological findings covering 34 world regions showing that non-agricultural peoples often live in groups that are more sedentary, unequal, large, politically stratified, and capable of large-scale cooperation and resource management than is normally assumed. These characteristics are not restricted to extant Holocene hunter-gatherers but, as suggested by archaeological findings from 27 Middle Stone Age sites, likely characterized societies throughout the Late Pleistocene (until c. 130 ka), if not earlier. These findings have implications for how we understand human psychological adaptations and the broad trajectory of human history.

scholarly journals Referee statement on Technology as Human Social Tradition: 15 Trait-Based Datasets of Hunter-Gatherer Material Culture (Northwest Siberia, Pacific Northwest Coast, Northern California). Data Paper

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Prentiss
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Northwest Coast ◽  
Northern California ◽  
Coast Salish ◽  
Pacific Northwest Coast ◽  
Social Tradition

The data provide significant opportunities for new investigations. The data are structured in such a way that each of Jordan's studies can be replicated spanning Khanty, Coast Salish, and various Indigenous Californian technological traditions.

scholarly journals Links between environment, diet, and the hunter-gatherer microbiome

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela K. Fragiadakis ◽  
Samuel A. Smits ◽  
Erica D. Sonnenburg ◽  
William Van Treuren ◽  
Gregor Reid ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Agricultural Products ◽  
Microbiota Composition ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Carbohydrate Utilization ◽  
Industrialized Nations ◽  
The World ◽  
Traditional Societies ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Seasonal Shifts

AbstractThe study of traditional populations provides a view of human-associated microbes unperturbed by industrialization, as well as a window into the microbiota that co-evolved with humans. Here we discuss our recent work characterizing the microbiota from the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania. We found seasonal shifts in bacterial taxa, diversity, and carbohydrate utilization by the microbiota. When compared to the microbiota composition from other populations around the world, the Hadza microbiota shares bacterial families with other traditional societies that are rare or absent from microbiotas of industrialized nations. We present additional observations from the Hadza microbiota and their lifestyle and environment, including microbes detected on hands, water, and animal sources, how the microbiota varies with sex and age, and the shortterm effects of introducing agricultural products into the diet. In the context of our previously published findings and of these additional observations, we discuss a path forward for future work.

Time, diversification, and dispersal on the Australian continent

2020 ◽  
pp. 116-141
Author(s):  
Nicholas Evans
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Australian Family ◽  
Australian Continent ◽  
Time Diversification ◽  
Colonial Contact

Sahul, the ancient continent uniting Australia and New Guinea, is the only inhabited continent uniquely occupied by small-scale societies until colonial contact. And Australia (only separated from New Guinea for 10,000 years) is the only continent exclusively occupied by hunter-gatherers. This makes Sahul, and Australia, crucial for understanding how language has evolved through our deep human past. This chapter addresses three enigmas: first the discrepancy in deep linguistic diversity and typological disparity between the Australian and New Guinea hemi-continents (1 maximal clade in Australia, over 50 in New Guinea), second the apparent relatedness of all Australian indigenous languages despite continuous human occupation for 60,000 years with no external intrusions, and third the recent spread of the Pama-Nyungan branch of the Australian family over seven-eighths of the continent, most likely in the mid-Holocene?

A small scale in vitro system for high throughput gas production analysis – A comparison with the Hohenheim gas test

2018 ◽  
Vol 241 ◽  
pp. 8-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karola Elberg ◽  
Patrick Steuer ◽  
Ute Habermann ◽  
Jürgen Lenz ◽  
Michael Nelles ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Throughput ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
In Vitro System ◽  
Production Analysis

scholarly journals What drives the evolution of hunter–gatherer subsistence technology? A reanalysis of the risk hypothesis with data from the Pacific Northwest

2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1567) ◽  
pp. 1129-1138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Collard ◽  
Briggs Buchanan ◽  
Jesse Morin ◽  
Andre Costopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Northwest Coast ◽  
Contact Period ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Relevant Variables ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Recent studies have suggested that the decisions that hunter–gatherers make about the diversity and complexity of their subsistence toolkits are strongly affected by risk of resource failure. However, the risk proxies and samples employed in these studies are potentially problematic. With this in mind, we retested the risk hypothesis with data from hunter–gatherer populations who lived in the northwest coast and plateau regions of the Pacific Northwest during the early contact period. We focused on these populations partly because the northwest coast and plateau differ in ways that can be expected to lead to differences in risk, and partly because of the availability of data for a wide range of risk-relevant variables. Our analyses suggest that the plateau was a more risky environment than the northwest coast. However, the predicted differences in the number and complexity of the populations' subsistence tools were not observed. The discrepancy between our results and those of previous tests of the risk hypothesis is not due to methodological differences. Rather, it seems to reflect an important but hitherto unappreciated feature of the relationship between risk and toolkit structure, namely that the impact of risk is dependent on the scale of the risk differences among populations.

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