Journal article
Storage defense: Expansive and intensive territorialism in hunter-gatherer delayed return economies
Quaternary international, Vol.518, pp.21-30
05/30/2019
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/111318
Abstract
Storage has long been recognized as critical to understanding the behavior and cultural evolution of hunting and gathering communities living at mid-latitudes throughout the world. Storage is a complex and powerful strategy, with profound results for human behavior and evolutionary consequences such as sedentism and population growth, increased sociopolitical complexity, social inequality, and the development of agriculture. One of the more provocative aspects of storage is how it may influence territorial behavior and defense tactics in human societies - a question that has been given little attention. In this paper we present a model of storage defense and suggest a simple notion: that storage defense territoriality is expected when the cost of defending stores is less than the cost of losing them. The cost-benefit dynamics of defending stored food are critically influenced by seasonality and storage (front-back loaded) timing. Territoriality in western North America developed along two fundamentally different evolutionary trajectories: expansive territorialism and intensive territorialism, which influence rational choice and socio-political developments. Expansive territorialism involves higher level decision making which incentivizes greater physical risk tied to territorial expansion and defense, whereas intensive territorialism involves inward turned interests that incentivize drudgery. Empirical evidence supports the notion that at the time of European contact intensive territorialism was the more common strategy followed by groups in California and much of the Pacific Northwest Coast. In contrast, some distinct Pacific Northwest groups were set along expansive territorial trajectories. These trajectories profoundly influence diet choice and territorial strategizing: Expansive Northwest Coast groups are heavily engaged in raiding and territorial expansion and rely more on front-loaded fish and marine mammals than do non-expansive Northwest Coast or northwestern California groups, who instead of raiding and poaching the front-loaded resources of their neighbors, turn intensification inward, supporting themselves in ever-smaller areas by emphasizing the use of back-loaded plant resources.
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Details
- Title
- Storage defense: Expansive and intensive territorialism in hunter-gatherer delayed return economies
- Creators
- Shannon Tushingham - Washington State University, Anthropology, Department ofRobert L Bettinger - Department of Anthropology, University of California –Davis, Davis, CA, USA
- Publication Details
- Quaternary international, Vol.518, pp.21-30
- Academic Unit
- Anthropology, Department of
- Publisher
- Elsevier Ltd
- Identifiers
- 99900586062801842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article