"we became fully bipedal and as intelligent as we are with all our cultural flexibility amid grasses, trees, herbivores and carnivores"
- From: "Marc Verhaegen" <fa204466@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 20:43:16 +0200
Apparently, fairy tales like the quotation above can still be found in
scientific works...
I suggest P.Storms inform a bit:
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Symposium.html
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/outthere.htm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AAT
______
Book review www.PalArch.nl webbased Netherlands scientific journal (2006)
RB Lee & R Daly eds 2004
"The Cambridge encyclopedia of hunters and gatherers"
CUP 511pp ISBN:0-521-60919-4 ? 25 $ 35 pb
review by P. Storm
http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm
The way human's function, physically and mentally, has essentially been
shaped in the time that our subsistence was based on gathering and hunting.
It is worthy of note that we became fully bipedal and as intelligent as we
are with all our cultural flexibility amid grasses, trees, herbivores and
carnivores, not by sitting behind a computer. As the two editors, Lee & Daly
remark in the introduction of this encyclopedia (p. 1): "The world's hunting
and gathering peoples - the Arctic Inuit, Aboriginal Australians, Kalahari
San, and similar groups - represent the oldest and perhaps most successful
human adaptation. Until 12,000 years ago virtually all humanity lived as
hunters and gatherers". Taking Homo sapiens idaltu from Ethiopia, dated
between 160 000 en 154 000 BP, as our oldest fossil representative, our
species lived more than 90 % of its time as hunters and gatherers. Good
change that our ancestors started to live as hunters and gatherers, with a
shift to more meat in their diet, about 1.7 myr ago, which would mean that
the genus Homo has survived by this mode of life about 99 % of its
evolutionary history. Considering the fact that also chimpanzees hunt
(Goodall, 1986) it is even reasonable to suggest, as is done Smith (p. 384),
that: "The idea of hunting and foraging was probably already embedded in the
social life of our non-human primate ancestors before they walked on two
legs".
The urban lifestyle, of which I am a part, is so recent that it is
questionable if there has been enough time to adapt genetically to this
modern way of life. Eaton & Eaton III remark (p. 449): "Our bodies are
adapted for foraging ways of life, yet they must contend with psychological,
nutritional, and physical stresses of "Space Age" existence." And there is
something important to learn for us all: "In relation to problems of human
health, recent gatherers and hunters can serve roughly as models of how men
and women lived when their lifeways and their genetic endowment were more
nearly in harmony".
'The Cambridge encyclopedia of hunters and gatherers' gives a wealth of
information on this important, basic way of life, divided in two main parts.
Part I (p. 23-371) deals with the ethnographies of over fifty of hunters and
gatherer groups, of seven geographical regions: North America, South
America, North Eurasia, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Australia. A
range of experts has written the case studies. Frequently occurring subjects
(set themes) within the ethnographies are: history, ecology, economy,
settlement patterns, domestic organisation, politic organisation, religion,
current situation and resistance. Less attention is paid to topics like for
instance: mobility, land tenure and kinship. Every geographical region has
its own introduction with a map showing the hunters and gatherers of the
region, and within the ethnographies one finds regularly black and white
photographs of the peoples. At the end of the case studies a reading list is
given and in about half of the cases also one or more films. The second
part, which is smaller (p. 375-492), contains thematic essays grouped in
three main parts: I. Hunter-gatherers, history, and social theory; II.
Facets of hunter-gatherer life in cross-cultural perspective; III.
Hunter-gatherers in a global world. Lévi-Strauss remarked in the well known
book 'Man the hunter', edited by Lee & Devore (1968, p. 350): "Certainly we
should not try to use these recent hunter-gatherers to reconstruct events
and conditions in the prehistory of mankind". As long as we are dealing with
for instance a species like Homo erectus, with an endocranial volume of
about 2/3 of our own, we have to be very careful with the reconstruction of
past events by looking at recent hunters and gatherers. Although, I am not
sure if I agree that we should not try. But as soon as we are talking about
Homo sapiens, this is another matter. Probably, many palaeontologists would
knit their brows seriously if one would say that we might not use recent
studies of wolves as a model or inspiration to try to say something about
the behaviour of Pleistocene wolves. If palaeo-anthropologists and
archaeologists are interested in reconstructing the life of for instance
Cro-Magnons in Pleistocene Europe, looking at recent hunters and gatherers
is the best option they have. However, this does not mean that we do not
need to be cautious. When I visited the Okiek in 1991, in the Mau Escarpment
in Southwest Kenya, one of the things that struck me were the western
clothes a number of people wore and the presence of a car. It helps to
realise that hunters and gatherers have contact with other groups. And this
must have been also the case (long) before the arrival of Europeans. Like
any group of people, they adopt all kind of habits. In other words, their
way of life is and was not static but dynamic. Turning over the pages of
this encyclopedia the impression is that one deals with a heterogeneous
group.
For every geographical region there is a chapter about archaeology and in
the second part a chapter is included 'Archaeology and evolution of hunters
and gatherers'. The encyclopedia takes the earlier periods of hunter and
gatherers seriously, i.e. more than forty pages are dedicated to it. But
this is less than in 'Man the Hunter'. For people fascinated by the past
this encyclopedia touches interesting topics but it offers no depth for
those involved in prehistoric hunters and gatherers. Especially for people
interested in ethnographies of hunters and gatherers this is a handy and
clearly arranged work that gives a lot of information and references. What
strikes is that this encyclopedia is not just a dry work to search for
information but it is also well written and really enjoyable to read.
Goodall, J. 1986. The chimpanzees of Gombe. Patterns of behavior. -
Cambridge, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Lévi-Strauss, C. 1968. The concept of primitiveness. In: Lee, R.B. & I.
DeVore. Eds. 1968. Man the hunter. - New York, Aldine de Gruyter.
.
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