Economic Anthropology Profile: Foragers

San Foragers (Human Area Relations Files)

 The most basic form of economy is the foraging economic unit, and up until about 10,000 years ago, every society in the world was a foraging society.  Foraging societies, also referred to as hunter-gatherers, are characterized by a reliance on nature to survive and constant movement across the landscape.  They do this by practicing seasonality, meaning they migrate across their landscape based on the presence of resources that are in season.  Each group exploits different resources based on the environment of which they inhabit.  For example, foraging groups of the Artic exploit big game animals that are native to the region, including whales, polar bears, artic foxes, and seals, but foraging groups in the Amazon rainforest will exploit other natural resources, such as local fruits and vegetables, snakes, frogs, fish, etc.  Because of their way of life and heavy reliance on their environment foraging groups cannot be and are not ecologically dominant, meaning they only take the resources they need but they do not over-exploit the resources in their region. 

Foraging societies are distinguished by two social groups that their members find significant.  These two groups are the nuclear family (immediate family) and the band.  The band is comprised of two or three nuclear families that are related and therefore are each other’s extended family.  Membership in the band is fluid and can change from year to year, as kin networks are created and maintained through marriage, trade, and visiting. 

Tlingit Foragers (Human Area Relations Files)

Foraging bands are egalitarian, meaning there is little social division within the group and everyone is considered relatively equal in status.  There are, however, some differences within the group and these differences are based on achieved status, or status that one earns in their lifetime.  In the case of foraging bands achieved status is based on age and knowledge and ability to hunt or gather.  The advanced age and/or abilities of an individual nets them prestige, which refers to the esteem or respect of others. 

Foraging societies do have a gender-based division of labor despite being egalitarian.  Women primarily gather while men hunt and fish, but the reason for this is based on reproduction and child rearing responsibilities that fall primarily on women.  Women give birth and feed their infants through breast milk until they are weaned.  They are therefore at a disadvantage for hunting large game because the infant requires a great deal of time and attention, and the infant can be loud and distracting, scaring away the big game that is being hunted.  Despite this, women, as gatherers, still hunt small game and actually contribute most of the food resources to the group as big game hunting is not consistently successful.       

Figure 1: Map of Historically Known Foraging Groups as Globally Distributed (Gezon & Kottak, 2014)

Foraging societies are still commonplace today in many regions in the world but not as prevalent in the past (Figure 1).  Modern foraging groups are under state control of the country that they reside in.  They are often forcibly moved from their traditional lands as a means of forced assimilation by the state, which results in culture loss among the foraging groups.  This occurs because of negative perceptions of foraging groups that include beliefs that they are less intelligent and primitive.  The reason that foraging societies continue is not because the group is stubborn or does not desire to change, but because the environments the group inhabits are not favorable for changing economic strategies (e.g. horticulture or agriculture).  Foraging societies are neither less intelligent nor primitive.  The fact that they continue to thrive today in their traditional life ways despite technological advances demonstrates their intelligence, and what we consider primitive may actually be more beneficial given that their ecological footprint is minimal and not as damaging to the environment as the state level societies that dominate them.

Bibliography:

Gezon, L., & Kottak, C. (2014).  Cultural Anthropology McGraw-Hill  

Monkeying Around: The Linguistic Studies of Primates

Primates are closely related to human beings and provide us great insights into what life would have been like for our hominid (human) ancestors, specifically species in the Australopithecus and Homo genera.  As such primate studies are primarily in the realm of physical anthropology, but today’s blog post will focus on primate studies not from a physical anthropological perspective but from a linguistic anthropological one.  Linguistic anthropologists have dabbled in primate studies in order to gain a better understanding of how language may have developed among our early hominid ancestors and from there have learned about what specifically makes our human language and means of communication so unique from other forms of communication among various animal species, specifically our primate cousins.  This blog post will discuss some of those studies and the information gleaned from them.

Studies of primates have demonstrated that primates can indeed communicate, although not in the same capacities as we, humans, can and do.  Primates communicate in a system of call systems, which are a series of sounds that vary in duration and intensity and are associated with specific environmental stimuli.  These sounds serve the purpose of primates by informing them of potential resources and dangers that individuals or groups may encounter in their environments, but these sounds are also incredibly inflexible as they are limited in type and use.  This means that if a primate encounters two different environmental stimuli simultaneously the primate can only express one response, not two.  This may occur when a primate encounters food and a predator at the same time.  In situation the primate can only signal one of two sounds: one for food or one for predator/danger but not both.  Also, this inflexibility in sounds means that the same sound may be used for completely different situations even if a new response is warranted.  For example, a primate may react to encountering a new situation (e.g. a new food source) the same way as it would to a predator by utilizing the fear/danger response.   

It is believed that our hominid ancestors utilized a similar form of communication, but as their brains evolved and developed they eventually began to manipulate the sounds they could produce and associated them with specific meanings, thoughts, and abstract ideas.  This is why we, as humans, can speak and communicate, whereas other animals cannot.  We also have the capacity to learn what these sounds mean and their associations, which is another reason why we have language and other animals are not considered to possess language.

Figure 1: Washoe & Beatrice Gardner

But primate studies have provided linguistic scholars further insights human and primate communication.  Experiments demonstrate that primates, specifically apes (i.e. chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos) can learn to use language, although they cannot speak.  They can learn and use sign language when taught by a human handler.  The first primate to do this was a chimpanzee named Washoe (Figure 1).  She was taught sign language by R. Allen and Beatrice Gardner, who were stationed at the University of Nevada-Reno.  Washoe learned over 100 signs representing several English words and within a year was able to communicate with short, basic sentences.  Studies of Washoe were followed up by a study on another chimpanzee named Lucy (Figure 2).  Primatologist Roger Fouts taught Lucy a series of signs, and she demonstrated similar language learning capabilities as Washoe.  She, however, took her language skills a bit further as she demonstrated the ability to teach language, swear, and lie, but it was Lucy’s ability to teach language that provided scholars insights into the cultural transmission of language.  This means that language is learned, which has since been identified as a key feature of language.

 

Figure 2: Lucy & Roger Fouts (Image Source: Allposters.com)

While work with chimpanzees was pioneering the work with gorillas provided more insights into language and language acquisition.  Penny Patterson worked with a gorilla named Koko (Figure 3), and Koko demonstrated a greater capacity to learn.  Koko learned far more signs than her chimpanzee predecessors and had a greater ability to compose thoughts.  She even demonstrated the ability to create new words, which is identified as productivity.  She connected specific signs and words to describe objects that she had seen but didn’t have a sign for.  She also demonstrated displacement, which means that she would discuss matters that were not present or were in the past.  This occurred when Koko apologized to Penny, her handler, for biting her in the previous days.  

Figure 3: Koko & Pet Kitten

There is at least one case of a Bonobo learning to communicate with humans, too.  Kanzi (Figure 4) is one such Bonobo housed at the Language Research Center at Georgia State University.  He learned and mastered communication via a keyboard with symbols, referred to as a lexigram, and he responds to specific human words by typing the symbol on the keyboard.  He, like the other primates, has demonstrated an ability to communicate with humans through the use of the keyboard, but he also can communicate through responding to commands given to him by his human handlers.  

Figure 4: Kanzi & Sue Savage-Rumbaugh

These primate studies show that primates have the ability to learn and use language, but this is only after they have learned means of communication from humans.  There remains no evidence of independent invention of language among primates-be they in captivity or in the wild.  As such there are critics of these studies and primates’ ability to learn language, but it is important to note that none of these critics have actually worked with primates in these capacities.  I do, however, want to leave you with several videos so you can judge for yourself whether or not these studies are legitimate or not in case you, too, have your doubts:

Washoe Video

Koko Video

Kanzi Video

References:

Gezon, L., & Kottak, C. (2014).  Cultural Anthropology McGraw-Hill  

Let’s Talk About Sex: A Discussion of Moche Erotic Pottery

Figures 1 & 2: Moche Pottery; Prisoner, Realistic Ceramic (Left) and Fisherman, Moche Fine Line (Right).  Images Taken by C. Boston, 2007.

The Moche existed along north coast of Peru from 200 to 850 AD.  It was a complex, state level society that covered a large geographical area.  Their cities, temples, and agriculture dotted the northern Peruvian coastline in what are considered two factions of the Moche: the Northern and Southern.  They both had a complex ideology that involved ritual sacrifice, priests and priestesses, and elaborate ceremonials.  The Moche are probably best known and recognized for their complex pottery styles, which ranged from fine-line to realistic pieces, all of which were made with clay and elaborately painted and stylized (Figure 1 & 2).  One such pottery style that is poorly studied among the Moche is their erotic pottery (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Moche Erotic Pottery (Source: Journeys, & C)

The Moche erotic pottery is characterized by the various sexual acts depicted, which include acts of oral, vaginal, and anal sex as well as masturbation.  These acts are most commonly shown between a man and a woman, although male on male homosexual acts are present, too.  Although heterosexual sexual relations are the most common it is interesting to note that vaginal sexual acts are the most rarely depicted.  Common sexual acts demonstrated in Moche erotic pottery are (in order of most common to least common) heterosexual anal sex, acts of masturbation, and heterosexual oral sex.  There are also several vases that portray males with their erect penises.  These pieces are known as phallic libations (Figure 4).  These are functional ceramics used as pouring vessels, with the erect penis being used as the spout.

Figure 4: Moche Phallic Libation Ceramic (Image Source: Elo Gallery)

The purpose of the Moche erotic pottery is still unknown in part due to their lack of study and the lack of contextual information associated with them.  There are, however, some hypotheses to explain the purpose of these ceramics:

·         Many scholars believe that these pots were used by the Moche as educational tools about sex and reproduction.  Given the number of sexual acts presented in the pottery this idea seems plausible, but the rarity of vaginal sexual acts, which leads to reproduction, casts doubt on this hypothesis.

·         R. Larco Hoyle proposed that the Moche erotic ceramics were indeed used as an educational tool for sexual education but not for reproductive purposes.  He believed that the lack of vaginal intercourse and the high prevalence of non-reproductive sexual acts, such as anal sex and masturbation, meant that the erotic pottery represented acts of birth control. 

·         Joan Gero believes that the Moche erotic pottery, while literally representing sexual acts, metaphorically represented power and political relationships within the Moche culture.  The Moche was the dominant culture of the period, and Gero believed that the Moche erotics symbolized the Moche’s dominance over other more subordinate groups that they conquered.  She also notes that the acts were performed on men by women, further demonstrating the dominance of men over women in Moche society.

·         Steve Bourget, however, believes that the Moche erotics signify the political and religious authority of the Moche leadership.  He points out how specific sexual acts seem to symbolize religious and authoritative positions.  He points out how the position of the individuals in the Moche anal erotics resembles a temple, and how in the oral sexual acts the male is seated with the female kneeling in front, which is similar to a throne.

At this point, it is unclear as to which, if any, of these hypotheses is the strongest and what the true purpose of the Moche erotics may have been.  Further study is necessary in order to better understand their purpose and the Moche culture, as well.

References

Bourget, S. and Taylor, AC.  2010.  Sex, Death, and Sacrifice in the Mochica Religion.  Musee du quai Branly.

Gero, J.  2004.  “Sex Pots of Ancient Peru: Post-Gender Reflections.”  In Combining the Past and the Present: Archaeological Perspectives on Society.  Edited by T. Oestigaard, N. Anfinset, and T. Saetersdal.  Oxford: Publishers of British Archaeological Reports.

Larco Hoyle, R. 1965. Checcan. Geneva: Nagel.