Staple, Feasting, or Fallback Food? Mussel Harvesting Among Hunter-Gatherers in Interior Central California

Social learning among Congo Basin hunter-gatherers.

This paper explores childhood social learning among Aka and Bofi hunter-gatherers in Central Africa. Existing literature suggests that hunter-gatherer social learning is primarily vertical (parent-to-child) and that teaching is rare. We use behavioural observations, open-ended and semi-structured interviews, and informal and anecdotal observations to examine the modes (e.g. vertical versus hori...

Crowding among hunter-gatherers: the Kung Bushmen.

Highly crowded living conditions exist among the !Kung Bushmen, hunter-gatherers who live on the edges of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana and South-West Africa. The !Kung appear to be crowded by choice, and biological indicators of stress are absent. Data indicate that residential crowding alone does not produce symptoms of pathological stress.

Mate preferences among Hadza hunter-gatherers.

The literature on human mate preferences is vast but most data come from studies on college students in complex societies, who represent a thin slice of cultural variation in an evolutionarily novel environment. Here, I present data on the mate preferences of men and women in a society of hunter-gatherers, the Hadza of Tanzania. Hadza men value fertility in a mate more than women do, and women ...

Horticulturalists and Hunter-Gatherers

Tubers as fallback foods and their impact on Hadza hunter-gatherers.

The Hadza are hunter-gatherers in Tanzania. Their diet can be conveniently categorized into five main categories: tubers, berries, meat, baobab, and honey. We showed the Hadza photos of these foods and asked them to rank them in order of preference. Honey was ranked the highest. Tubers, as expected from their low caloric value, were ranked lowest. Given that tubers are least preferred, we used ...