Tuesday, August 7, 2007

PS 27-43: Cultural ecogeography: Environmental determinants of hunter-gatherer range size and foraging patterns

William R. Burnside and Jordan Okie. University of New Mexico

Indigenous human societies display consistent ecogeographic patterns : as with biological species, human ethnic groups are more concentrated in the tropics and in mountainous regions. This similarity implies that societies and species may respond to similar environmental factors that vary along geographic gradients. Using a global dataset on hunter-gatherer and mixed subsistence societies (Binford, 2001), we used a macroecological approach to investigate mechanisms affecting the territory size (“area”) of different cultural groups. We found that climactic variables affect the area groups occupy: high temperature, precipitation, and NPP all “constrain” societies to small areas. This relationship is anchored by temperate & tropical (i.e. “warm”) forests, which never support groups with large territories. Within warm forests, cultures tend to rely on gathering, while groups in cool forests and other biomes tend to rely more on hunting and fishing. These hunting and fishing societies occupy the full range of territory sizes and tend to have more-mobile households. These differences may reflect optimal foraging-style tradeoffs. This study suggests climactic factors and ecosystem type constrain traditional human territory sizes through their effects on the costs and benefits of subsistence strategies and mobility patterns.  It also highlights baseline considerations for conserving and perhaps partially restoring biocultural diversity—the combined diversity of biota and traditional lifeways.

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