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ATL3HUMAN ORIGINS

Week 4Prof Marlize Lombard

2016

Theoretical approaches to hunter-gatherer research

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Theoretical approaches to hunter-gatherer research• Learning outcomes (exam questions)

• Critically discuss ethnographic sources and analogies to the understanding of Stone Age hunter-gatherer communities

• Explain how middle-range theory, cognitive archaeology and ecological and demographic theories can be applied to hunter-gatherer studies

• Discuss some issues that Wadley raises concerning the study of gender in the prehistory, and how the concept of transformation can be applied to study gender

Why hunter-gatherers?• For the most part of our Homo lineage (the past 2.5

million years) hominins and humans subsisted through scavenging, hunting and gathering veld foods (wild plants & insects)

• It is only since the Holocene (last 12 thousand years) that we became food producers (farmers)

• By this time we were ‘modern’

• Thus, to understand what made us human we need to understand hunter-gatherer behaviour and cognition

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Theoretical approaches to hunter-gatherer research• Learning outcomes (exam questions)

• Critically discuss ethnographic sources and analogies to the understanding of Stone Age hunter-gatherer communities

• Explain how middle-range theory, cognitive archaeology and ecological and demographic theories can be applied to hunter-gatherer studies

• Discuss some issues that Wadley raises concerning the study of gender in the prehistory, and how the concept of transformation can be applied to study gender

The use of ethnographic analogy

• Ethnography: study and presentation of data on human societies

• Analogy: is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject (the analogue or source) to another particular subject (the target), for example:• a water pump can serve as an analogy for a mammalian heart

• Ethnographic analogy is when archaeologists use ethnographic data of current or recent societies to help interpret or understand aspects of past human behaviour

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The use of ethnographic analogy

• Ethnographic analogy is useful when used wisely, but problematic when applied without care

• For example, ethnographic records were valuable in providing evidence that communities do not necessarily behave in ways that are optimal

• It showed that modern people operate mostly according to social conventions

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Ethnographic case study I

• For example, Bofi and Aka hunters in the Central African Republic are most successful in hunting duiker with snares

• Yet, they often ignore this technique, choosing to hunt with nets

• Although relatively inefficient, net hunts are public activities at which a hunter’s accomplishments are seen by all – providing social benefits in addition to food

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Ethnographic case study I

• For example, Bofi and Aka hunters in the Central African Republic are most successful in hunting duiker with snares

• Yet, they often ignore this technique, choosing to hunt with nets

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• Although relatively inefficient, net hunts are public activities at which a hunter’s accomplishments are seen by all – providing social benefits in addition to food

Ethnographic case study II

• In East Africa too, a large component of men’s hunting takes place for social reasons such as:

• Showing off, competing amongst each other, attracting mates, and/or gaining status or allies

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Problems with applying ethnographic analogy

• First, it is difficult to decide whether ethnographically observed behaviour has relevance to the past behaviours of specific communities

• Often, analogues reveal how our ancestors were ‘not’ like us, and what we still need to explain about human evolution

Problems with applying ethnographic analogy• Archaeological interpretations based on

ethnographic models can lead to:• Oversimplified conclusions

• An assumption that general principles of behaviour apply to all hunter-gatherers, past and present

• An example is the assumption that archaeological ochre automatically implies body painting and/or ritual, because modern hunter-gatherers such as the San used ochre in this manner

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Problems with applying ethnographic analogy• However, studies of living hunter-gatherers have

shown a wealth of behavioural variability/diversity between groups

• There is every likelihood that this was also true for communities of the past

• Ethnographic analogy can also unintentionally imply that living hunter-gatherers are ‘human/living fossils’

The way forward

• Archaeologists need to explore the specific historical context of ethnographic records before using them to construct models about the past

• There can be no expectation that archaeological data should be explained through ethnography or historical records

• Archaeological data may suggest past behaviours for which there are no known modern correlates

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Theoretical approaches to hunter-gatherer research• Learning outcomes (exam questions)

• Critically discuss ethnographic sources and analogies to the understanding of Stone Age hunter-gatherer communities

• Explain how middle-range theory, cognitive archaeology and ecological and demographic theories can be applied to hunter-gatherer studies

• Discuss some issues that Wadley raises concerning the study of gender in the prehistory, and how the concept of transformation can be applied to study gender

Middle-range theory• Middle-range theory is

aimed at integrating theory and empirical research

• In archaeology it is often applied as experimental or ‘actualistic’ archaeology

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Middle-range theory• For example, a combination of ethnographic research,

experimental work and microscopic analyses are used to interpret the function of prehistoric stone tools

Cognitive archaeology

• Many cognitive theoretical frameworks concentrate on the abilities of the individual – where the inventor is a lone genius

• Yet, humans are social creatures that evolved in groups, which is also reflected in aspects of our cognition

• Experiments show that thinking in groups produces better results than thinking alone – but only for tasks that are sufficiently challenging to exceed the capacity of an individual

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Cognitive archaeology

• Psychologists have shown that individuals who engage socially perform better on cognitive tests than those who don’t

• This could supports the hypothesis that social factors, more than technological ones, were responsible for the evolution of modern cognition

Ecological and demographic theories• There is a plethora of theories that use the

environment and/or climate change to explain subsistence behaviour, demography and population movements such as:

• Optimal foraging

• Diet breadth

• Group-size models

• Transport-cost models

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Theoretical approaches to hunter-gatherer research• Learning outcomes (exam questions)

• Critically discuss ethnographic sources and analogies to the understanding of Stone Age hunter-gatherer communities

• Explain how middle-range theory, cognitive archaeology and ecological and demographic theories can be applied to hunter-gatherer studies

• Discuss some issues that Wadley raises concerning the study of gender in the prehistory, and how the concept of transformation can be applied to study gender

Gender in prehistory

• Sex refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women (our anatomy and genetic makeup)

• Gender refers to socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men, women, children, etc.

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Gender in prehistory

• Behaviour according to gender is a major aspect of current human behaviour, but how can we study this aspect in prehistory?

• Wadley uses the concept of transformation to hypothesise about past gender identities

• She argues that identity, place, age, and gender are linked in rites of passage and in many other aspects of daily life

Gender in prehistory

• The concept of gender is a social construct infused with social values

• If we accept that gender concepts are dependent on symbolism, then it is problematic to assume that early hominins had gender concepts

• It is thus challenging for archaeologists to recognize the point of origin for the concept of gender

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Gender in prehistory

• Recent cognitive research implies that the evolution of some aspects of gendered behavior may have arisen from several cognitive differences between the sexes

• A positive correlation between frontal white matter and IQ is present in women

• Whereas temporal white matter volumes correlate positively with IQ in men

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Gender in prehistory

• Whether or not such differences in ability predispose women and men to perform different tasks, or whether these can be translated into different gendered behaviors in the past, remains debatable

• Gender stereotypes derived from ethnographic literature about hunter-gatherer social behavior have been questioned

Gender in prehistory

• For example, the ‘Man the Hunter’ model has been shown to be flawed, because there are modern examples of women who hunt or contribute to the meat quest

• Another common gender stereotype is that African men command society totally and that women are disempowered

• It is true that there are plenty of examples of an unequal balance of power, but it is not correct to interpret women in the past as solely dependent on men

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Gender in prehistory

• Such stereotypes are artificial constructs that do not take account of human adaptability to daily realities

• These issues demand that archaeological interpretations of gender proceed cautiously, taking note of the complexity of the African data

Transformation and gender

• Transformation is a theme that resonates through culture regardless of gender, ethnicity, or geographical location

• One of the important things about transformation is its irreversible shaping of identities

• In the context of gender, the transformation from girl-or boy-child to woman and man is permanent and the social gravity of this change is often marked by ceremony – a rite of passage – that may include symbolic behavior to mirror the altered status

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Transformation and gender

• It is symbolically appropriate that permanent bodily alterations are made to the initiate (though this does not happen in all societies)

• These can include circumcision, tattooing, scarification, finger joint amputation, or dental modification

• However, physical alteration is not the only way in which the achievement of separate genders is observed in sub-Saharan Africa

Case study 1 • Female initiation seems to take precedence over male

initiation in modern San societies

• Gender is central to the themes of female initiation and dangerous feminine potency in San rock art

• Most of the large groupings of humans in San art depict naked people, who appear to be engaged in dances associated with initiation events for young men or first menstruation events for young women

• Rock art can thus be used as a line of evidence for past gendered behaviour

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San girl secluded in hut during her initiation ceremony

San boys become eligible after killing a large and/or dangerous animal

Stone Age gender

• Transformations are hard to find in Stone Age contexts, and ‘finding gender’ is even more difficult

• However, from a theoretical viewpoint, the ability to effect permanent transformations on products from nature is circumstantial evidence that people were capable of thinking about transformations of all kinds – including social ones such as gender transformation

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Videos

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vvb16VyVEY

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8ehkGRcNNE

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8WTJ-r2cnQ

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B3Abpv0ysM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8WTJ-r2cnQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8ehkGRcNNEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8WTJ-r2cnQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B3Abpv0ysM