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SCALING THE SIZE, STRUCTURE, AND DYNAMICS OF RESIDENTIALLY MOBILE HUNTER-GATHERER CAMPS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2018

Marcus J. Hamilton ,
Briggs Buchanan  and
Robert S. Walker
Marcus J. Hamilton*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA; and Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA
Briggs Buchanan
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Harwell Hall, University of Tulsa, 800 South Tucker Drive, Tulsa, OK 74104, USA
Robert S. Walker
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Swallow Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
*
([email protected], corresponding author)
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Abstract

Short-term hunter-gatherer residential camps have been a central feature of human settlement patterns and social structure for most of human evolutionary history. Recent analyses of ethnohistoric hunter-gatherer data show that across different environments, the average size of hunter-gatherer bands is remarkably constant and that bands are commonly formed by a small number of coresident families. Using ethnoarchaeological data, we examine the relationship between the physical infrastructure of camps and their social organization. We compiled a dataset of 263 ethnoarchaeologically observed hunter-gatherer camps from 13 studies in the literature. We focus on both the scale of camps, or their average size, structure, and composition, and the dynamics that governed their variation. Using a combination of inferential statistics and linear models, we show that the physical infrastructure of camps, measured by the number of household features, reflects the internal social organization of hunter-gatherer bands. Using scaling analyses, we then show that the variation among individual camps is related to a predictable set of dynamics between camp area, infrastructure, the number of occupants, and residence time. Moreover, the scale and dynamics that set the statistical variance in camp sizes are similar across different environments and have important implications for reconstructing prehistoric hunter-gatherer social organization and behavior from the archaeological record.

Los campamentos residenciales a corto plazo de cazadores-recolectores han sido un aspecto central de los patrones de asentamiento y de la estructura social durante la mayoría de la historia evolutiva humana. Análisis recientes de datos sobre cazadores-recolectores etnohistóricos muestran que el tamaño promedio de los grupos es notablemente constante en diferentes entornos ambientales. También se muestra que estos grupos están formados por un número reducido de familias con la misma residencia. Por medio de datos etnoarqueológicos, examinamos la relación entre la infraestructura física de los campamentos y su organización social. Compilamos datos etnoarqueológicos acerca de 263 campamentos de cazadores-recolectores usando información procedente de 13 estudios previos. Nos enfocamos en la escala de estos campamentos, o su tamaño, estructura y composición, así como en las dinámicas que determinan la variación entre ellos. Usando una combinación de estadísticas inferenciales y modelos lineares, demostramos que la infraestructura física de los campamentos, indicada por el número de rasgos domésticos, refleja la organización social interna de los grupos de cazadores-recolectores. Por medio de análisis de escalamiento demostramos que la variación entre campamentos individuales se relaciona a un conjunto previsible de dinámicas entre el área del campamento, la infraestructura, el número de ocupantes y el plazo de residencia. Además, la escala y las dinámicas que determinan la varianza estadística de los tamaños de los campamentos son semejantes en ambientes diferentes y tienen implicaciones para reconstruir la organización social de los grupos de cazadores-recolectores prehistóricos con base en el registro arqueológico.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 4 , October 2018 , pp. 701 - 720
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by the Society for American Archaeology 

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