<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<p><img
src="https://www.anthroencyclopedia.com/sites/www.anthroencyclopedia.com/files/styles/full-article-style/public/hunting_gathering_pume_medium_cropped.png?itok=zugqXwVa"
width="910" height="445"></p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 29-07-2020 11:14, R.O. wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:6b1ca4ed-5e11-4761-7c81-555dbe26802e@ziggo.nl"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.anthroencyclopedia.com/entry/hunting-and-gathering">https://www.anthroencyclopedia.com/entry/hunting-and-gathering</a>
<br>
<br>
Thomas Widlok
<br>
University of Cologne
<br>
Initially published 18 May 2020
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://doi.org/10.29164/20hunt">http://doi.org/10.29164/20hunt</a>
<br>
<br>
Abstract
<br>
<br>
Hunting and gathering constitute the oldest human mode of making a
living, and the only one for which there is an uninterrupted
record from human origins to the present. Correspondingly, there
has been a lot of anthropological attention devoted to hunting and
gathering with an initial confidence that one could directly
observe human nature by studying hunter-gatherers. More recently,
however, anthropologists have grown cautious not to draw analogies
between present-day hunter-gatherers and those of the distant past
too quickly. They also do not focus on hunting and gathering as
isolated activities, but rather on the socio-cultural formations
that have been found to be associated with them. Despite
considerable regional diversity, there are recurrent themes in
hunter-gatherer ethnography that show shared patterns beyond the
ecology of foraging. Prominent is the notion of hunter-gatherers
being ‘originally affluent’ with a relatively low workload.
Hunter-gatherers have also been associated with a high incidence
of gender and age equality, due to levelling practices such as
sharing. Most hunter-gatherers live in very small groups,
characterised by multirelational kinship ties. They often have
distinct forms of environmental perception, and it has been
suggested that they display a high degree of playfulness in ritual
affairs. They therefore provide comparative insights in a
wide-range of domains far beyond the activities of hunting and
gathering.
<br>
<br>
<br>
References
<br>
<br>
Altman, J. C. 1987. Hunter-gatherers today: an Aboriginal economy
in north Australia. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal
Studies.
<br>
<br>
Bird, D., R. Bird, B. Codding & D. Zeanah 2019. Variability in
the organization and size of hunter gatherer groups: foragers do
not live in small-scale societies. Journal of Human Evolution 131,
96-108.
<br>
<br>
Bird-David, N. 1990. The giving environment: another perspective
on the economic system of gatherer-hunters. Current Anthropology
31(2), 189-96.
<br>
<br>
––––––– 2017. Before nation: scale-blind anthropology and
foragers’ worlds of relatives. Current Anthropology 58(2), 209-26.
<br>
<br>
Boehm, C., 1993. Egalitarian behavior and reverse dominance
hierarchy. Current Anthropology 34(3), 227-54.
<br>
<br>
Breyer, T. & T. Widlok (eds) 2018. The situationality of
human-animal relations: perspectives from anthropology and
philosophy. Bielefeld: Transcript-Verlag.
<br>
<br>
Brightman, R. 1993. Grateful prey: Rock Cree human-animal
relationships. Berkeley: University of California Press.
<br>
<br>
Brody, H. 2000. The other side of Eden: hunters, farmers and the
shaping of the world. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre.
<br>
<br>
Candea, M. 2019. Comparison in anthropology: the impossible
method. Cambridge: University Press.
<br>
<br>
Dahlberg, F. (ed.) 1981. Woman the gatherer. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
<br>
<br>
Day, S., E. Papataxiarchēs & M. Stewart (eds) 1999. Lilies of
the field: marginal people who live for the moment. Boulder:
Westview Press.
<br>
<br>
Durkheim, É. 2015 [1912]. Les formes élémentaires de la vie
religieuse. Paris: Classiques Garnier.
<br>
<br>
Dussard, F. 2000. The politics of ritual in an Aboriginal
settlement: kinship, gender, and the currency of knowledge.
Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
<br>
<br>
Gibson, T. & K. Sillander (eds) 2011. Anarchic solidarity:
autonomy, equality, and fellowship in Southeast Asia. New Haven:
Yale University Press.
<br>
<br>
Gordon, R. 1992. The bushman myth: the making of a Namibian
underclass. Boulder: Westview Press.
<br>
<br>
Gowdy, J. (ed.) 1998. Limited wants, unlimited means: a reader on
hunter-gatherer economics and the environment. Washington, DC:
Island Press.
<br>
<br>
Gray, P. 2009. Play as a foundation for hunter-gatherer social
existence. American Journal of Play 1(4): 476-522.
<br>
<br>
Guenther, M. 1999. Tricksters and trancers: bushman religion and
society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
<br>
<br>
Hayden, B. 1994. Competition, labor, and complex hunter-gatherers.
In Key issues in hunter-gatherer research (ed.) E. Burch & L.
Ellanna, 223-39. Oxford: Berg.
<br>
<br>
Hewlett, B.S. 1991. Intimate fathers: the nature and context of
Aka Pygmy paternal infant care. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
<br>
<br>
Ingold, T. 2000. The perception of the environment: essays on
livelihood, dwelling & skill. London: Routledge.
<br>
<br>
Jones, R. 1969. Fire-stick farming. Australian Natural History
16(7), 224-8.
<br>
<br>
Kästner, S. 2012. Jagende Sammlerinnen und sammelnde Jägerinnen.
Wie australische Aborigines-Frauen Tiere erbeuten. Berlin: Lit.
<br>
<br>
Keesing, R.M. 1975. Kin groups and social structure. New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
<br>
<br>
Kelly, R.L. 2013. The lifeways of hunter-gatherers: the foraging
spectrum. 2nd ed. Cambridge: University Press.
<br>
<br>
Kent, S. (ed.) 2002. Ethnicity, hunter-gatherers, and the "other":
association or assimilation in Africa. Washington, DC: Smithsonian
Institution Press.
<br>
<br>
Leacock, L. 1998. Women's status in egalitarian society:
implications for social evolution. In Limited wants, unlimited
means: a reader on hunter-gatherer economics and the environment
(ed.) J. Gowdy, 139-64. Washington, DC: Island Press.
<br>
<br>
Lee, R. 1979. The !Kung San: men, women, and work in a foraging
society. Cambridge: University Press.
<br>
<br>
Lee, R. 2003. The Dobe Ju/'hoansi. 3rd ed. South Melbourne:
Wadsworth.
<br>
<br>
Lee, R.B. & R. Daly (eds) 1999. The Cambridge encyclopedia of
hunters and gatherers. Cambridge: University Press.
<br>
<br>
Lee, R.B. & I. DeVore 1968. Man the hunter. Somerset: Taylor
and Francis.
<br>
<br>
Lewis, J. 2015. Where goods are free but knowledge costs. Hunter
Gatherer Research 1(1), 1-27.
<br>
<br>
Liebenberg, L. 1990. The art of tracking: the origin of science.
Claremont: David Philipp.
<br>
<br>
Mauss, M. 2004 [1904-05]. Seasonal variations of the Eskimo: a
study in social morphology. London: Routledge.
<br>
<br>
Peterson, N. 1993. Demand sharing: reciprocity and the pressure
for generosity among foragers. American Anthropologist 95, 560-74.
<br>
<br>
Rao, A. (ed.) 1987. The other nomads: peripatetic minorities in
cross-cultural perspective. Köln: Böhlau.
<br>
<br>
Rakowski, T. 2016. Hunters, gatherers, and practitioners of
powerlessness: an ethnography of the degraded in postsocialist
Poland. New York: Berghahn.
<br>
<br>
Sahlins, M. 1988. Stone age economics. London: Tavistock.
<br>
<br>
Schneider, D. 1980. American kinship: a cultural account. 2nd ed.
Chicago: University Press.
<br>
<br>
Swain, T. 1993. A place for strangers: towards a history of
Australian Aboriginal being. Cambridge: University Press.
<br>
<br>
Thompson, E.P. 1975. Whigs and hunters: the origin of the black
act. New York: Pantheon.
<br>
<br>
Turner, D. 1999. Genesis regained: Aboriginal forms of
renunciation in Judeo-Christian scriptures and other major
traditions. New York: Lang.
<br>
<br>
Widlok, T. 1992. Practice, politics and ideology of the
“travelling business” in Aboriginal religion. Oceania 62(2),
114-36.
<br>
<br>
––––––– 1999. Living on Mangetti: ‘Bushman’ autonomy and Namibian
independence. Oxford: University Press.
<br>
<br>
––––––– 2015. Moving between camps. Hunter Gatherer Research 1(4),
473-94.
<br>
<br>
––––––– 2016. Hunter-gatherer situations. Hunter Gatherer Research
2(2), 127-43.
<br>
<br>
––––––– 2017. Anthropology and the economy of sharing. London:
Routledge.
<br>
<br>
––––––– & W. Tadesse (eds) 2005. Property and equality, volume
1: ritualisation, sharing, egalitarianism. New York: Berghahn.
<br>
<br>
Willerslev, R. 2007. Soul hunters: hunting, animism, and
personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
<br>
<br>
Woodburn, J. 1998. Egalitarian societies. In Limited wants,
unlimited means: a reader on hunter-gatherer economics and the
environment (ed.) J. Gowdy, 87-110. Washington, DC: Island Press.
<br>
<br>
––––––– 2005. Egalitarian societies revisited. In Property and
equality, volume 1: ritualisation, sharing, egalitarianism (eds)
T. Widlok & W. Tadesse, 18-31. New York: Berghahn.
<br>
Note on contributor
<br>
<br>
Thomas Widlok is Professor for Cultural Anthropology of Africa at
the University of Cologne. He received his PhD from the London
School of Economics and is author of Living on Mangetti (1999,
Oxford University Press) and of Anthropology and the economy of
sharing (2017, Routledge). He has co-edited Property and equality
(2005, Berghahn) and The situationality of human-animal relations
(2019, Transcript-Verlag).
<br>
<br>
Prof. Dr. Thomas Widlok, African Studies, University of Cologne,
Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Köln, Germany.
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:thomas.widlok@uni-koeln.de">thomas.widlok@uni-koeln.de</a>
<br>
_______________________________________________
<br>
D66 mailing list
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:D66@tuxtown.net">D66@tuxtown.net</a>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tuxtown.net/mailman/listinfo/d66">http://www.tuxtown.net/mailman/listinfo/d66</a>
<br>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>