Modeling Modes of Hunter-Gatherer Food Storage

2012 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 714-736 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Morgan

AbstractAnalyses of the capacity and rates of different acorn storage techniques employed by the Western Mono of California’s Sierra Nevada during the very late Holacene indicate hunter-gatherers store food in at least three main modes: central-place storage, dispersed caching, and dispersed bulk caching. The advantage of caching modes over central-place ones is that they entail faster storage rates and thus the chance to maximize storage capacity when seasonality and scheduling conflicts limit storing opportunities. They also result in predictable stores of acorn separate from winter population aggregations but oftentimes near seasonally occupied camps. Central-place storage thus appears most directly related to coping with single-year seasonal variability in environmental productivity and sedentary overwintering strategies; caching, and especially bulk caching, with multi-year environmental unpredictability, overwintering and seasonal residential moves. Storage thus appears to generally develop as a response to seasonality and unpredictable environmental productivity, but its various forms are conditioned mainly by how they articulate with different mobility types. Complex Mono storage behaviors, however, were associated with regionally low population densities and relatively uncomplicated social structures nonetheless characterized by chiefs who maintained their positions by throwing feasts of stored acorn. The connections between storage, population density, and sociocultural complexity thus appear less direct and predicated on specific sociopolitical circumstance. Recognizing different modes of hunter-gatherer storage is consequently critical to assessing the roles ecology, mobility, group size, and social distinctions play in the development of disparate storage behaviors.

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 523-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Testart ◽  
Richard G. Forbis ◽  
Brian Hayden ◽  
Tim Ingold ◽  
Stephen M. Perlman ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 377-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaarel Sikk ◽  
Geoffrey Caruso

The behavioural ecological approach to anthropology states that the density and distribution of resources determines optimal patterns of resource use and also sets its constraints to grouping, mobility and settlement choice. Central place foraging (CPF) models have been used for analyzing foraging behaviours of hunter-gatherers and drawing a causal link from the volume of available resources in the environment to the mobility decisions of hunter-gatherers. In this study, we propose a spatially explicit agent-based CPF model. We explore its potential for explaining the formation of settlement patterns and test its robustness to the configuration of space. Building on a model assuming homogeneous energy distributions, we had to add several new parameters and an adaptation mechanism for foragers to predict the length of their stay, together with a heterogeneous environment configuration. The validation of the model shows that the spatially explicit CPF is generally robust to spatial configuration of energy resources. The total volume of energy has a significant effect on constraining sedentism as predicted by aspatial model and thus can be used on different environmental conditions. Still the spatial autocorrelation of resource distribution has a linear effect on optimal mobility decisions and needs to be considered in predictive models. The effect on settlement location choice is not substantial and is more determined by other characteristics of settlement location. This limits the CPF models in analyzing settlement pattern formation processes.


1983 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-120
Author(s):  
David R. Yesner ◽  
Alain Testart

Soil Systems ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Rasmussen ◽  
Heather Throckmorton ◽  
Garrett Liles ◽  
Katherine Heckman ◽  
Stephen Meding ◽  
...  

There is a critical need to quantify the role of soil mineral composition on organic carbon (C) stabilization in forest soils. Here, we address this need by studying a matrix of forest ecosystems and soil parent materials with the objective of quantifying controls on the physical partitioning and residence time of soil organic carbon. We sampled soil profiles across a climate gradient on the western slope of the California Sierra Nevada, focusing on three distinct forest ecosystems dominated by ponderosa pine, white fir, or red fir, on three igneous parent materials that included granite, andesite, and basalt. Results indicated that short-range order mineral phases were the dominant factors accounting for the variation in soil carbon content and residence time. The results further suggested an interaction between ecosystem fire regime and the degree of soil weathering on the partitioning, chemical composition, and residence time of C in density separated soil physical fractions. These results suggest a link between the degree of soil weathering and C storage capacity, with a greater divergence in storage capacity and residence time in the Inceptisols, Entisols, and Andisols of the white fir and red fir ecosystems relative to minimal variation in the highly weathered Ultisols and Alfisols of the ponderosa pine ecosystem.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
R Peyroteo-Stjerna

ABSTRACT For most of human history, funerary burial has been unusual. Archaeology shows a shift in funerary practices in postglacial hunter-gatherers, in parts of Europe during the Late Mesolithic. This is documented by the burial grounds in the Tagus and Sado valleys in the southwestern Iberian Peninsula, Portugal, where ca. 376 burials were excavated. This study presents a chronology for the burial activity in these sites and contextualizes the start and end activity phases within regional environmental changes and cultural developments. The dataset consists of 76 14C dates on human bone (19 new, 57 published) including new dates from contexts in Portugal outside these valleys. Bayesian chronological models were defined in OxCal, and protein carbon contributions of marine foods were estimated by the Bayesian mixing model FRUITS. The results indicate a broader timeframe for the Late Mesolithic in Portugal, than previously suggested, starting during a period of significant environmental changes, ca. 8500–8300 cal BP, and ending ca. 7000 cal BP. The burial activity decreased during the establishment of Neolithic farmers in southwestern Iberia from ca. 7450 cal BP, however, these burial grounds continued to be used by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, showing that diverse social structures and worldviews coexisted for several generations.


1976 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 489 ◽  
Author(s):  
RC Muchow ◽  
GL Wilson

Under favourable growing conditions, the source-sink relationships in grain yield of sorghum were analysed in terms of capacities for net assimilation, of head storage, and of the transport system to move assimilates between source and sink. In four commercial hybrids (Dekalb E57, Pacific Goldfinger, Texas 610SR, and Texas 626) grown at three population densities (20.2, 40.4 and 80.8 plants m-1), the assimilates supply was varied by increasing or decreasing the radiation available per plant (by thinning or shading), the potential gram storage capacity was decreased by spikelet removal, and the transport system was reduced by incision of the culm, all manipulations being performed at anthesis. Decreasing the number of grains increased the size of those remaining in all cultivars at all population densities The degree of Increase was greatest for T626 and T610 and least for E57 Thinning increased the grain size In all cultivars, but only sufficiently to cause a significant increase In gram yield In T610 and T626 Reduction in the assimilate supply by shading decreased the gram size and yield in all cultivars. Reduction In the transport system had no significant effect on gram yield. These results showed that there was surplus capacity for storage and transport In all cultivars In T626, T6L0, and Goldfinger, all post-anthesis assimilate was stored as gram and grams could grow larger The yield was therefore completely source-limited In E57, however, not all port-anthesis assimilate was stored as gram, and these grams showed little capacity to grow larger, which suggests that the yield was partially limited by both source and sink.


2021 ◽  
Vol 106 ◽  
pp. 116-120
Author(s):  
Shaik Riyaz Basha

Thermal energy storage (TES) based on hidden heat concept is good substitute for sensible heat storage because of its dense storage capacity and almost constant temperature heat transfers during the charging and discharging cycle. During no load and low cooling load conditions the system stores the thermal energy in the storage medium (phase change material) which will be used latter to meet the requirement in off cycle conditions. The intention of present work is to increase the system off cycle time, maintain required temperatures during power cuts by joining a few inch thick layer of phase change material on the outer surface of the evaporator. For investigation purpose a deep freezer which runs on vapor compression system of 50 liters storage capacity is fabricated with and without phase change materials. The eutectic compositions nearly 23 wt% salt (NaCl) dissolved in water and aluminium nitrate around 26 wt% dissolved in water are used as phase change materials. By the end of all experimental investigations it was noticed that the off cycle time system with phase change material is increased by 5.5 hours compared to system without phase change material, food storage time is enhanced by 8 to 14 hrs and a little power saving also achieved.


Author(s):  
Peter Mitchell

Freshwater fish are often identified as a major resource for past hunter-gatherers, and their exploitation has been implicated in both the emergence of the capacity for modern behaviour and the evolution of sociopolitical complexity. Archaeological attention has mostly been directed at higher latitude groups, but southern Africa is one of several middle and lower latitude regions in which freshwater fish were also procured, sometimes on a large scale. This chapter considers their exploitation in Africa south of the Zambezi over the longue durée of the past 70,000 years, discusses the ways in which they were captured, and evaluates claims that they helped sustain higher population densities, reduced mobility, seasonal aggregation, and the development of more ‘delayed return’ economies during the late Holocene.


1999 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle J. Johnston ◽  
Christopher G. Alexander

The mouthparts and proventriculus of Thenus orientalis Lund are adapted to ingest soft flesh, which is consistent with the diet of this and other scyllarids. The crista dentata are reduced, with food transfer into the oesophagus facilitated by large stout setae on the second and third maxillipeds. The mandibles exert little force and most food maceration is effected by the gastric mill. Ingestion is aided by mucus secreted by rosette glands in the paragnaths and membranous lobe, as well as expansion of four longitudinal folds in the oesophageal wall. The cardiac stomach has considerable food storage capacity by extension of its membranous walls, reduced ossicles and simplified ventral filtration channels. The filtering ability of the pyloric filter press is consistent with other macrophagous decapods. The dorsal caecum above the pyloric stomach has an absorptive columnar epithelium that contains acid mucin granules and protein. Muscular walls and longitudinal folds in the hindgut facilitate faecal pellet extrusion.


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