Evidence of Levy walk foraging patterns in human hunter-gatherers

Evidence of Levy walk foraging patterns in human hunter-gatherers.

When searching for food, many organisms adopt a superdiffusive, scale-free movement pattern called a Lévy walk, which is considered optimal when foraging for heterogeneously located resources with little prior knowledge of distribution patterns [Viswanathan GM, da Luz MGE, Raposo EP, Stanley HE (2011) The Physics of Foraging: An Introduction to Random Searches and Biological Encounters]. Althou...

Demystifying Levy Walk Patterns in Human Walks

This paper reports that bursty hot spot sizes are a key factor in causing the heavy-tail distribution of flights in human walks. A heavy-tailed distribution of flights is a signature feature of Levy walks. The data analysis based on GPS traces of human walks reveals that the sizes of a few extremely large hot spots are dominating the mean size of hot spots and they cause the bursty (i.e., long-...

Skeletal evidence for variable patterns of handedness in chimpanzees, human hunter-gatherers, and recent British populations.

Previous studies have shown a strong correspondence between long bone bilateral asymmetry and reported handedness. Here, we compare the pattern of asymmetry in mechanical properties of the humerus and second metacarpal of Pan troglodytes, recent British industrial and medieval populations, and a broad range of human hunter-gatherers, to test whether technological variation corresponds with late...

Horticulturalists and Hunter-Gatherers

Foraging Decisions Among Ach Hunter-Gatherers: New Data and Implications for Optimal Foraging Models

This article summarizes 5 years of research on resource choice and foraging strategy among Ache foragers in eastern Paraguay. Successes and failures of simple models from optimal foraging theory (OFT) are discussed and revisions are suggested in order to bring the models in line with empirical evidence from the Ache. The following conclusions emerge: (1) Energetic returns from various alternati...