Hunter-Gatherer Socioeconomic Variation

3 units

This class will explore the nature and extent of variation in hunter-gatherer socio-economic systems as documented in the literature on recent hunter-gatherers, and in the archaeological record of the last 20,000 years. We will discuss Woodburn's concept of delayed return hunter-gatherers, Testart's writing on hunter-gatherer socio-economic organization, and archaeological concepts of simple and complex hunter-gatherers. We will examine case studies of both delayed and immediate return hunter-gatherers from the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia, and emphasize understanding underlying reasons for differences between groups, and implications of differences for patterns of cultural change, including the adoption of food production.