The Coastal Sami of Varanger fjord in north Norway are today largely assimilated into the modern society and economy of Norway. They are farmers, com­mercial fishermen, and reindeer herders rather than hunters and gatherers. In the past, however, this large, treeless Arctic fjord, with its hinterland of stunted birch forests and mountain tundra, was the […]

2.1.4 General Principles Higher levels of risk are typical of more seasonally fluctuating environments, especially where winter conditions of darkness and extreme cold make hunting difficult and the option of constant mobility becomes extremely arduous. Midwinter sedentism is virtually obligatory in sub-Arctic and Arctic environ­ments, where food storage is not so technically difficult (stored food […]

For HG groups, any risk of subsistence crisis will be reduced where (1) food energy derives from a diverse set plant and animals and (2) aggregate food resources are continuously available during the year, even if certain foods are more abundant in certain seasons. If a preferred food such as meat is temporarily scarce, then, […]

The Dobe subgroup of the! Kung San were studied by Richard Lee in the 1960s, and provide an example of these interacting constraints. For the Dobe, water is the overriding factor that dictates the location of camps. The camp serves as the home base for 30-40 people, who move out each morning in groups of […]

2.1.3 General Principles Rather than managing plants and animals to achieve a spatially focused concentration of food energy, which is the strategy of agriculturalists and pastoralists, hunter-gatherers must depend on the natural distribu­tion patterns in time and space of the resources on which they depend. In circumstances in which there is a natural concentration of […]

2.1.1 General Principles In some societies, it might make sense to understand behavior in terms of profit or surplus (i. e., maximiz­ing energy output), but most anthropologists now believe that for HG societies maximizing security (i. e., minimizing risk) makes more sense. Security is increased when the risks of food shortage are successfully managed. From […]

Using ethnographic sources, we can map the distribution of 115 HG societies that existed in the 20th century (Fig. 2). Based on the environments they occupy, five groups can be distinguished: • Hot deserts and tropical savannas (19 societies). • Tropical rain forests and coral reefs (30 societies). • Boreal forest and tundra zone (38 […]

1.2 Can We Extrapolate from HG Societies to Hominids? There has been much interest in the possibility that studies of energy flow in HG societies can be used to achieve an understanding of our hominid ancestors. As Robert Foley put it, ‘‘until very recently being a hominid, being a human and being a hunter-gatherer were […]