Ethnographic and Modeled Costs of Long-Distance, Big-Game Hunting

2010 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deanna N. Grimstead
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Ecology ◽  
Energetic Efficiency ◽  
Costly Signaling ◽  
Round Trip ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Travel Costs ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Big Game Hunting ◽  
Prey Items ◽  
Game Animals

Evolutionary ecology provides a rich pool of models from which archaeologists derive expectations about prehistoric human behavior. Signaling Theory (ST) has been applied successfully in ethnographic and certain archaeological contexts. Other applications have fallen prey to post-hoc explanation of aberrant archaeological patterns. This paper evaluates the claim that big-game hunting was a costly foraging behavior when traveling great distances, and therefore was undertaken as a form of costly signaling. The central place foraging model is used in conjunction with caloric expenditure formulae, derived from human energetics and locomotion research, to evaluate the cost of travel and transport versus the returns for large and small prey items. It is shown that big game continues to yield significant energetic returns even in situations where travel costs are comparatively high (i.e., 100-200 km round-trip). Small game hunting becomes energetically costly when a forager makes a procurement round-trip of more than ca.10 km. Large game animals are the highest return prey items even when procurement distances are comparatively great because humans are physiologically well-adapted for carrying objects over long distances. While the capture of big game animals may have bestowed prestige upon prehistoric hunters or served as some other signal of individual quality, these prey animals were not overly costly in terms of energetic efficiency—even under increased travel costs. These results emphasize the difficulty of separating social prestige from optimal foraging as the basis for big-game hunting in archaeological contexts.

Prestige and Prejudice: The Role of Long Distance Big Game Hunting as an Optimal Foraging Decision

2012 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deanna N. Grimstead
Keyword(s):  
Central Place ◽  
Central Place Foraging ◽  
Economic Returns ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Return Rates ◽  
Small Game ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Big Game Hunting ◽  
Foraging Decision

AbstractSignaling theory has much to offer anthropology and archaeology, which is in part why there is an increasing number of applications and healthy debates surrounding how best to apply it. One of those debates surrounds whether big game hunting is a costly signal or simply an aspect of efficient foraging. Grimstead (2010) contributed to this debate by showing that long-distance big-game hunting (greater than 100 km roundtrip) produces higher caloric return rates than does local small-game hunting, despite increased costs of travel and transport for the former. Whittaker and Carpenter (this issue) present a model that also suggests long-distance big-game hunting produces higher economic returns than local foraging but only up to about 50 km. This paper provides further details on the tenets of the Grimstead (2010) paper in response to criticisms by Whittaker and Carpenter (this issue), and then uses a previously published central place foraging model (Cannon 2003) to show that another model also shows long-distance big-game hunting over a distance greater than 100 kilometers roundtrip produces higher returns than local foraging.

Palaeolithic Big Game Hunting at HP766 in Wadi Umm Rahau, Northern Sudan

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Achilles Gautier ◽  
Daniel Makowiecki ◽  
Henryk Paner ◽  
Wim Van Neer
Keyword(s):  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Large Mammals ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Large Size ◽  
Animal Bone ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Big Game Hunting ◽  
Bone Remains

HP766, discovered by the Gdansk Archaeological Museum Expedition (GAME) in the region immediately upstream the Merowe Dam in North Sudan and now under water, is one of the few palaeolithic sites with animal bone remains in the country. The archaeological deposits, the large size of the site, the lithics and the radiocarbon dates indicate occupation of a silt terrace of the Nile in late MSA and perhaps LSA times. Large and very large mammals predominate markedly among the recovered bone remains and it would seem that the palaeolithic hunters focused on such game. They could corner these animals on the site which is partially surrounded by high bedrock outcrops. Moreover swampy conditions of the site after the retreat of the annual Nile flood may have rendered less mobile the prey animals. According to this scenario, HP766 would testify to the ecological skills and generational memory of late prehistoric man in Sudan.

Shikar in the Princely Reserves

2018 ◽  
pp. 220-261
Author(s):  
Vijaya Ramadas Mandala
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Political Alliances ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Big Game Hunting

Chapter 4 examines the complex relations between the British and Indian princes in relation to shikar and the political subtext of power politics at play. The reconstitution of Indian ruling values and identities between the British and Indian princes under the umbrella of big-game hunting is an important arena of colonial fabric. The Britons successfully mobilized these in establishing elitism and hierarchy in the realm of hunting, and enlisting the support of the Indian princes for the continuation of the colonial enterprise. The other important aspect of hunting in India was shikar in the princely reserves, maintained exclusively by Indian rulers for the highest ranks of the colonial elite. Hunting on such occasions was an extravagant affair involving state elephants and other elaborate entourage, in a powerful display of ancient and more recent ruling privileges, and underlining critical political alliances between the princes and the Raj. For the British, the royal shikars lent ritual credence to their political authority in a staged show of solidarity with the traditional rulers of the land. While confirming the solidarity of the ruling classes, the shikar expeditions also tested the strength of bonds between the British and Indian rulers. The colonial government’s endeavour to devise a series of British royal tours in the princely states involving big-game shoots and associated courtly trappings implies a shared aristocratic lineage and desire to promote the idea of Indian empire.

Imperial Culture and Hunting in Colonial India

2018 ◽  
pp. 38-78
Author(s):  
Vijaya Ramadas Mandala
Keyword(s):  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Colonial Administration ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
East Indian ◽  
Imperial Culture ◽  
Indian Company ◽  
British Military ◽  
The World ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Big Game Hunting

This chapter offers a brief account of the institution of the hunt, or shikar, and its significance as an allegory of rule in pre-colonial and colonial India, by illustrating the transition of hunting from the Mughals to the East Indian Company period. Further, this study moves away from the purely recreational focus on hunting, and places it within the world of everyday colonial administration and rule. It firmly establishes the link between shikar and governance, particularly how the British positioned and employed big-game hunting and conservation at various levels, and in different situations, aimed at the establishment and stabilization of colonial rule, and in ordering and redrawing Indian marginal territories. Another key aspect is how shikar served as an essential platform, where power and rule operated in a recreational situation. Here, the chapter illustrates the way the hunting field aided and enabled the British to formulate their political and imperial agendas in an expedient way. The sporting lives of the Company administrators like John Malcolm and James Outram are studied in detail to demonstrate the nature of high imperial decades and British military credence in the Indian hunting field.

scholarly journals Economic evaluation of natural forest park using the travel cost method (case study; Masouleh forest park, north of Iran)

2014 ◽  
Vol 60 (No. 6) ◽  
pp. 254-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Mohammadi Limaei ◽  
H. Ghesmati ◽  
R. Rashidi ◽  
N. Yamini
Keyword(s):  
Willingness To Pay ◽  
Travel Time ◽  
Travel Cost ◽  
Travel Cost Method ◽  
Round Trip ◽  
Significant Relation ◽  
Forest Park ◽  
Travel Costs ◽  
North Of Iran

We evaluated recreational and socioeconomic values of Masouleh forest park, north of Iran. Travel Cost Method (TCM) or Clawson method was used for evaluation. Therefore, 96 questionnaires were distributed among the visitors. The results indicated that the variables such as travel time to the park, travel costs, age and education were effective variables in using the park. The results show that there is a significant relation between travel time and the number of visitors whereas by increasing travel time the number of visitors decreased. Furthermore, there is a significant relation between the number of visitors as a dependent variable and travel costs whereas when the travel cost increases, the number of visitors decreases. Results indicated that the willingness to pay decreased by increasing the entrance fee. The models estimated an average willingness to pay 12,500 Iranian Rials per visit. The results also indicated that the average round trip travel cost was 85.5 (10,000 Iranian Rials).  

Fossil Bison and Associated Artifacts from Milnesand, New Mexico

1955 ◽  
Vol 20 (4Part1) ◽  
pp. 336-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. H. Sellards
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Sand Dune ◽  
High Plains ◽  
Post Office ◽  
American Continent ◽  
The West ◽  
North American Continent ◽  
The North ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Big Game Hunting

Several Early man hunting sites have been discovered and excavated by various institutions in and near the High Plains region of Texas and New Mexico, including the Folsom, San Jon, and Clovis, or Blackwater Draw, localities in New Mexico, and the Miami, Plainview, Lipscomb, and Lubbock localities in Texas. To the west and north are similar sites in Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas. This large region, including a part of the great interior plains, was indeed for early man a big game hunting area of the North American continent.A new hunting site in this region, located in the southern part of Roosevelt County near Milnesand, New Mexico, about 40 miles south of Portales, is here described. This locality, containing artifacts, a bison-bone bed and charred bison bones, is in a sand-dune region about 3 miles northeast of Milnesand post office. (The name Milnesand is derived from “mill in the sand,” a term formerly applied to a windmill and watering place located near the present town.) The first artifacts obtained from the locality were collected by Ted Williamson of Milnesand.

Blood Residues on Fluted Points from Eastern Beringia

1998 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas H. Loy ◽  
E. James Dixon
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Mammal Species ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Human Predation ◽  
Pleistocene Mammals ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Biological Methods ◽  
Fluted Points ◽  
First Time ◽  
Big Game Hunting

Blood residues have been microscopically and chemically detected on fluted projectile points from eastern Beringia. From these residues a variety of large mammal species, including mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), have been identified using biochemical and molecular-biological methods. This is the first time a direct association has been made between the use of fluted projectile points and human predation of extinct fauna and other large Pleistocene mammals in arctic and subarctic North America. This suggests the northern fluted-point assemblages are part of the Paleoindian big-game hunting tradition that was widespread in North America at the close of the Pleistocene.

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