Thesis
Dimensions of wild yam foraging among a Congo Basin forager population
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2011
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/101882
Abstract
Over twenty years ago, several anthropologists began to question the ability of foragers to inhabit rainforest environments prior to the advent of agriculture. The current paper tests the hypothesis that foragers could not occupy rainforest environments prior to the development of agriculture. This hypothesis suggests that the major limiting factor to sustained human occupation is the availability of edible carbohydrates in rain forest ecosystems. Edible carbohydrate resources available in rainforests, in particular wild yams, are scarce, exhibit unpredictable distributions and require large handling times. A direct consequence of the ITF hypothesis is the reliance of tropical foragers on domesticated sources of carbohydrates, a pattern that has been documented across tropical environments, is one of necessity. The applicability of these assumptions is tested using wild yam return rate data from the Bofi, a northern Congo Basin forager population. Return rates of wild yams in the current study will demonstrate, in contradiction to the ITF hypothesis, that wild-yams could sustain independent occupation of the Northern Congo Basin rain forests. Furthermore, these results challenge the assumption that the contemporary reliance of tropical foragers on domesticated sources of carbohydrates is born from necessity.
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Details
- Title
- Dimensions of wild yam foraging among a Congo Basin forager population
- Creators
- Mark Andrew Caudell
- Contributors
- Karen Lupo (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Anthropology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; Pullman, Wash. :
- Identifiers
- 99900525383601842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis