Mutualistic hunting

The cooperative acquisition, defense and distribution of meat are common problems that must be solved by social hunters. These were also problems faced by any of our hominid ancestors that may have hunted large game in our evolutionary past. Much of the last 40 years of research in evolutionary ecology has tried to understand such cooperative behavior. The classic Prisoner's Dilemma game theory model captures much of the essence of cooperation and its study has dominated inquiry into cooperation. While a good model of reciprocity, the Prisoner's Dilemma may not be the best paradigm for understanding other types of cooperation. Both byproduct and synergistic mutualism differ from the Prisoner's Dilemma with respect to the relative payoffs for cooperators and defectors. I argue that synergistic mutualism more closely models the payoffs common to cooperative big game hunting. Selection favors by-product mutualism in circumstances where not cooperating inflicts a cost on the cheater. The difference between synergistic hunting and by-product hunting lies with the returns obtained from solitary large game hunting (lower return) relative to the returns obtained from solitary small game hunting (higher return). For many types of large game, return rates increase significantly when hunting occurs in a group. However, these same prey are extremely difficult to kill alone. I present whale hunting in the village of Lamalara, Indonesia as an example of synergistic big game hunting. Invited paper for the conference The Early Human Diet: The Role of Meat held from October 1-4, University of Wisconsin. Craig Stanford and Henry Bunn, organizers. Sponsored by the WennerGren Foundation. Draft: Do not cite without author’s permission Alvard, M. Mutualism Page:2 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you. God speaking to Noah, Genesis 9:3.