Linda J. Ellanna - Key Issues in Hunter-Gatherer Research

Explorations in Anthropology
A University College London Series

Series Editors: Barbara Bender, John Gledhill and Bruce Kapferer

First published 1994 by Berg Publishers

Published 2020 by Routledge
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Ernest S. Burch, Jr., and Linda J. Ellanna

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burch, Ernest S. and Ellanna, Linda J.
Key issues in Hunter-Gatherer research / edited by
Ernest S. Burch, Jr., and Linda J. Ellanna.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0854963758.ISBN 0854963766 pbk.)
1. Hunting and gathering societies. I. Burch, Ernest S., Jr., 1938
II. Ellanna, Linda J., 1940
GN388.K49 1993
306.3dc20

Front cover photograph: Lawrence Ilugtun Sage with part of an evening's harvest of ringed seals, Kivalina, Alaska, June 26, 1964.
Photo by E. S. Burch, Jr.

Back cover photograph: Biaka Pygmy women and child at a stream near Djoko, Central African Republic.
Photo by Marion McCreedy, 1989.

ISBN 13: 978-0-854-96375-1 (hbk)

Field studies of hunting and gathering peoples were carried out, of course, but most of them were purely descriptive and they were read by relatively few people.

. We thank Lois M. Myers for the extraordinary attention, care, and effort she put into helping us make this book a reality. We also thank Pam Odum, Cheryl Worthen and Deb Varner for their help, and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks for its support. Finally, we thank our colleague-contributors to this volume for their cooperation and patience.

Theoretical interest in hunter-gatherer societies was stimulated in North America primarily by the pioneering work of Julian Steward (1936,1938,1955). Steward's contributions lay in his discussion of bands as the foundation of foraging societies and in his efforts to reinstate social evolution as a legitimate subject of academic inquiry. In other parts of the world interest in an empirically grounded theory of hunter-gatherer societies was stimulated primarily by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown's (1930,1931) models of Australian Aborigine societies. V. Gordon Childe's (1925, 1951: 22) evolutionary distinction between "food gatherers" (i.e., hunter-gatherers) and "food producers" (i.e., societies with agriculture and/or husbandry) also created some interest, as did the early field studies of nonhuman primates (e.g., DeVore, ed. 1965) and the search by prehistorians for ethnographic models to help interpret archaeological assemblages (e.g., Kleindienst and Watson 1956). In the late 1950s and early 1960s these trends led to an unprecedented surge of theoretically oriented field research on hunter-gatherer societies.

The combination of serious theoretical concerns and the acquisition of large quantities of new field data led to a series of conferences. The first was the Conference on Band Organization in 1965 (Damas, ed. 1969a). The other two, held in 1966, were the Conference on Cultural Ecology, in which foraging societies held center stage (Damas, ed. 1969b), and the Man the Hunter Conference {Lee and DeVore, eds. 1968), in which such societies constituted the sole topic of discussion. Together, the three conferences and their published proceedings had the effect of moving hunter-gartherer research from the backwaters of anthropology into the mainstream.

In the quarter century since the proceedings of the three "founding" conferences appeared, hunter-gatherer research has expanded enormously, so much so that it is difficult to keep track of developments in the field. Thus, it is useful from time to time to pause and take stock, which is the purpose of this book.

The nineteen papers that comprise the core of this volume are grouped into several sections according to the general issue they address. The themes are Each is comprised of an editorial introduction followed by one or more chapters, each of which deals with a specific problem within the general category. Since most of our own points are made in the editorials, the balance of this general introduction is devoted to putting the volume as a whole into context.

. A number of the more philosophical issues affecting hunter-gatherer studies were recently discussed in a paper by Richard Lee (1992).

There has been much greater variation among hunter-gatherer societies than is realized by many, or admitted by most, hunter-gatherer specialists. At one extreme within the historical/ stratification.

of Botswana to designate the several relevant groups. For discussions of this issue, see Lee (1979: 29 ff.), Silberbauer (1981: 3 ff., 1991), and Wilmsen (1989a: 27). We thank George Silberbauer for clarifying the relevant issues for us in a personal communication.

Most specialists on hunter-gatherer societies have dealt with this variation by ignoring it. A few have attempted to deal with it by dividing the general class of hunter-gatherers into subcategories according to various criteria. Since these distinctions are referred to in some of the chapters and in most of the editorials, it is appropriate to introduce them here.

Historically, "hunter" took precedence over "gatherer" in referring to this class of societies, because it was assumed that hunting was more important to people's livelihood than gathering. As is made clear in the section on gender, recent evidence demonstrates otherwise. In fact, in many societies, gathering has contributed more to the food supply than hunting. On the basis of this finding, it has been suggested that the components of the label be reversed, so that the class would be referred to as gatherer-hunter; or, that the class be divided into two subclasses depending on whether hunting or gathering are more important: hunter-gatherer and gatherer-hunter. Both types are represented in this volume.