ANTH 522 Hunter-Gatherer Ethnoarchaeology

Dr. Mark Plew Anthropology Department Conference Room , 1:40-4:40, T Spring Semester, 2008

Introduction
This course will explore variation in foraging life ways of prehistoric and contemporary hunter-gatherers. Its focus relates to how hunter-gatherers affect behavioral solutions to subsistence within varied environments. We will examine ways in which hunting and gathering strategies use differing patterns of social interaction, mobility and technologies to successfully exploit their environments. The course will emphasize the ways in which hunter-gatherer diversity is explained through the use of various models, theories and insights drawn from behavioral ecology. The course will examine lithic resource acquisition, organizational variability of lithic and faunal assemblages and site structure as sources of archaeological interpretation. This course will consist of discussions, student presentations and written papers. The first nine weeks of this course will include an intensive review of hunter-gatherer diversity.

Objectives
Completion of this course will enable the student to: Discuss the history of hunter-gatherer research Discuss models of behavioral/evolutionary ecology that are used to explain food choices and settlement patterns Describe and discuss examples of hunter-gatherer mobility and settlement, resource acquisition and social organization Discuss and critique models and theories used to explain hunter-gatherer behaviors Discuss analogical applications of hunter-gatherer behavior to contexts of early hominid/human evolution and later prehistoric periods

Required Texts
The Foraging Spectrum by Robert L. Kelly Recommended: Limited Wants, Unlimited Means: A Reader on Hunter-Gatherer Economics Environment, Edited by John Gowdy

Books you may wish to review that you may wish to look at: Hunter-Gatherer Foraging Strategies: Ethnographic and Archaeological Analyses by B. Winterhalder and E.A. Smith Evolutionary Ecology and Human Behavior by E.A. Smith and B. Winterhalder Hunter-Gatherers in History, Archaeology and Anthropology, Edited by Alan Barnard* Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological and Evolutionary Theory by Robert L. Bettinger Ethnoarchaeology and Hunter-Gatherers, Edited by K. Fewster and M. Zvelebil Hunter-Gatherer Landscapes by Michael Jochim Cultural Diversity Among Twentieth Century Foragers, Edited by Susan Kent Hunters and Gatherers in the Modern World, Edited by P. Schweitzer, M. Biesele, and R. Hitchcock The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers by Lee and Daly Constructing Frames of Reference: An Analytical Method for Archaeological Theory Building Using Hunter-Gatherer Data Sets. University of California Press, Berkeley by Lewis R. Binford Archaeology and Ethnoarchaeology of Mobility edited by Sellet, Greaves and Yu

Course Requirements and Evaluation

You will be evaluated in terms of your participation in class and by the quality of your written and presented work. There will be no exams in this course. You will write four short but highly detailed and synthetic essays on topics complimenting our readings (25 points each). These are due the week following there assignment.These will serve to facilitate our discussions. The major assignments in the course will be the preparation of a 15-25 page research paper relating to some aspect of hunter-gatherer anthropology/archaeology and a twenty (20) to thirty (30) minute oral presentation based on the research paper. Research topics must be cleared with the instructor and the papers prepared by March 15. A formal abstract of the paper is due by February 19tth. .The research paper and presentation will each count 100 points toward a total of 300 points for the course. I have made specific assignments in the syllabus including those relating to your responsibility to locate and prepare for discussion topical papers beyond those

assigned. The last weeks of the course you will present your papers to my undergraduate hunter-gather class and serve as discussants for their papers.

Grading
Grades will be assigned per the following scale: A=300-270 B=296-266 C=265-235 D=234-204 F=203 or fewer points

Office Hours
TTH 10:30-12:00 or by Appointment. Phone: 426-3444. Email: mplew@boisestate.edu

Course Syllabus
Week 1. The History of Hunter-Gatherer Research-Anthropological Approaches to Hunters and Gatherers Kelly, The Foraging Spectrum, Chapters 1-2. Salhlins in Gowdy (1986) Yengoyan, Anthropological History and the Study of Hunters and Gatherers: Cultural and Non-cultural (suggestedin Barnard) Binford, Bands May Exist only in the History of Anthropology in Archaeology and Ethnoarchaeology of Mobility, Sellet, Greaves and Yu, 2006 Week 2. Subsistence, Mobility and Exchange Kelly, The Foraging Spectrum, Chapters 3-5 Lee, What Hunters do for a Living in Gowdy (1986) Hill, Hawkes and Hurtado, Kaplan, Seasonal Variance in the Diet of the Ache in Human Ecology 1984 (suggested) Alvord, Intraspecific Prey Choice by Amazonian Hunters in Current Anthropology 36(suggested). Winterhalder, Optimal Foraging: Simulation Studies of Diet Choice in a Stochastic Environment in Journal of Ethnobiology 6, 1986(suggested) Essay 1. Discuss the relationship between subsistence and mobility

Weeks 3 and 4. Foraging Behavior, Group Size and Reproduction Kelly, The Foraging Spectrum, Chapters 6-7 Glassow, M., The Concept of Carrying Capacity in the Study of Culture Change, in M. Schiffer, Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 1: 31-48 1978 Optimization and Risk in Human Foraging Strategies by Yellen in Journal of Human Evolution (suggested) Marlowe, F., Marital Residence Among Foragers in Current Anthropology 44 (suggested) Essay 2. How do foraging behaviors vary by groups size? How is this related to reproduction? Week 5. Hunter-Gatherer Social Structure/Organization Kelly, The Foraging Spectrum, Chapter 8 Woodburn , Egalitarian Societies, in Man 1982 Leacock, Womens Status in Egalitarian Society: Implications for Social Evolution, in Gowdy 1998 Week 6. Hunting and Gathering Behaviors and Paleoanthropology Kelly, The Foraging Spectrum, Chapter 9 Sept, J.M., Beyond Bones: Archaeological Sites, Early Hominid Subsistence and the Costs and Benefits of Exploiting Wild Plant Foods in East African Riverine Landscapes In Journal of Human Evolution 27:295-320 (required) Shipman, Scavenging or Hunting in Early Hominids: Theoretical Frameworks and Tests in American Anthropologist (required) 1986 Quiatt and Huffman, On Home Bases, Nesting Sites, Activity Centers and New Analytic Perspectives in Current Anthropology (suggested) OConnell, Hawkes and Jones, Hadze Scavenging: Implications for Plio/Pleistocene Hominid Subsistence, Current Anthropology (suggested) 1988 Kaplan, Hill, Lancaster, Hurtado, A Theory of Human Life History Evolution: Diet, intelligence and Longevity in Evolutionary Anthropology 9(4): 156-185. 2001 Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives on Hunter-Gatherer Mobility, Subsistence and Settlement Week 7. Organizational Variability Wobst, M., The Archaeo-Ethnography of Hunter-gatherers: The Tyranny of the Ethnographic Record in Archaeology, American Antiquity 43: 303-309 Binford, Dimensional Analysis of Behavior and Site Structure: Learning from an Eskimo Hunting Stand and Willow Smoke and Dogs Tails: Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems and Archaeological Site Formation in American Antiquity (required) 1980

Kent, Relationship Between Mobility Strategies and Site Structure and The Archaeological Visibility of Storage: Delimiting Storage from Trash, American Antiquity, 1999 (required) Technological Organization and Mobility: An Ethnographic Example, M. Schott, Journal of Anthropological Science 1986 (required) Kelly, Mobility/Sedentism: Concepts, Archaeological Measures and Effects, Annual Review of Anthropology (required) 1992 Essay 3. Outline what you see as the most critical arguments regarding archaeological assemblage organization.

Week 8. Resource Intensification and Use Simms, Acquisition and Nutritional Data on Great Basin Resources in Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology (required) 1986 Broughton, Late Holocene Resource Intensification in the Sacramento Valley, California The Vertebrate Evidence (required) 1994 Locate two additional papers pertaining to resource intensification/depression and be prepared to discuss them

Essay 4. Using data from sources outside the required readings summarize recent examples of how archaeofauna have been used to address issues of resource intensification and depression. Week 9. Site Formation and Site Structure Simms, and Heath, Site Structure of the Orbit In: An application of Ethnoarchaeology, American Antiquity 45: 797-813. Located two additional papers regarding site formation and site structure and be prepared to discuss them

Week 10. Archaeological Evidence of Complex Hunter-Gatherers Kelly, The Foraging Spectrum, Chapter 8 for review Testart, The Significance of Food Storage Among Hunters and Gatherers: Residence Patterns and Population Densities in Current Anthropology (suggested) Hayden, Competition , Labor and Complex Hunter-Gatherers in Key Issues in HunterGatherer Research (suggested) 1994 Yesner, D.R., Maritime Hunter-Gatherers: Ecology and Prehistory, in Current Anthropology 21: 727-750. Week 11. Faunal Analysis

Yellen, Cultural Patterning in Faunal Remains: Evidence from the Kung Bushmen! In Experimental Archaeology, 1977 (required) Binford, Butchering, Sharing and the Archaeological Record, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 3: 325-257, 1984 (required) Lupo and Schmitt, On Late Holocene Variability in Bison Populations in Northeastern Great Basin. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, 19:50-69. (required) 1996 Lupo and Schmidt, Small Prey Hunting Technology and Zooarchaeological Measures of Taxanomic Diversity and Abundance: Ethnoarchaeological Evidence from Central African Forest Foragers, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 24: 335-353. 2003 (required) Locate an additional paper dealing with faunal analysis in Ethnoarchaeology and be prepared to discuss it

Week 12. Technology Binford, Forty Seven Trips in Stone tools and Cultural Markers 1977, and An Alyawara Day: Making Mens Knives and Beyond, American Antiquity 51:547-562. Bamforth, D., Technological Organization and Hunter-Gatherer Land Use: A Californian Example American Antiquity 56: 216-234. Plew and Woods, Observations on Edge Damage and Technological Effects on Pressure Flaked Stone Tools, in Stone Tool Analysis: Essays in Honor of Don Crabtree, University of New Mexico Press, 1985 Sellet, Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Inference of Mobility Patterns from Stone Tools, in Archaeology and Ethnoarchaeology of Mobility, edited by Sellet, Greaves and Yu, 2006 (required) Locate an additional paper dealing with the Ethnoarchaeology of technology and be prepared to discuss

Week 13. The Future of Hunter-Gatherer Research Bettinger, Hunter-Gatherers: Problems in Theory in Hunter-Gatherers in Anthropological and Evolutionary Theory Solway, J.S., and R.B. Lee, Foragers Genuine or Spurious, Current Anthropology, 31:109-146 Wilmsen, E.N., and J.R. Denbow, Paradigmantic History of the San-speaking Peoples and current attempts at revision Current Anthropology 31: 489-524. Kent, S., The Current Forager Controversy: Real vs. Ideal Views of Hunter-Gatherers in Man 27: 45-70. Binford, Bands May Exist only in the History of Anthropology in Archaeology and Ethnoarchaeology of Mobility, Sellet, Greaves and Yu, 2006 (review)

Weeks 14-18. Presentation of Papers and Participation in ANTH 400 as Discussant