ANG 6930/ANT4930 – Hunter-Gatherers

Instructor: Kenneth E. Sassaman
Office: 1112 Turlington
Email: sassaman@anthro.ufl.edu
Phone: (352)392-2253 ext. 205
Office Hours: Mon. 1-2:30 pm; Thurs. 10:30-11:30 am

Required Texts:

Kelly, Robert L. 1995 The Foraging Spectrum:  Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C. (out of print, but available in reprinted form from Eliot Werner Publications, Inc.)

Panter-Brick, Robert H. Layton, and Peter Rowley-Conwy (eds.)  2001  Hunter-Gatherers: An Interdisciplinary Perspective.  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Grinker, Roy Richard 1994 Houses in the Rainforest: Ethnicity and Inequality among Farmers and Foragers in Central Africa.  University of California Press, Berkeley.

Clastres, Pierre 1998 Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians.  Zone Books, New York.

Additional reading as issued

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Course Description

Hunter-gatherer studies had long been the last vestige of anthropology's quest for natural man (Barnard 2004).

Although they are no longer the dominant form of human sociality and adaptation, and exist today in relatively minor numbers, hunter-gatherers continue to be the focal point of fundamental debates in anthropology and related fields of inquiry.   From the romanticism of Rousseau and the rhetorical extremism of Hobbes, to the evolutionary ideals of Morgan and the ecological idealism of 1970s ethnographers, perceptions of "hunter-gatherers" have both conformed to and effected changes in anthropological inquiry and western society. Having undergone so many and so frequent conceptual shifts in the past two centuries, "hunter-gatherer" is a construct, some have argued, with no empirical or evolutionary validity. Clearly people have lived off the land without the aid of agriculture or animal husbandry, so at the level of subsistence, "hunter-gatherer" is a meaningful category. However, none of the essentialist qualities once assigned to this mode of subsistence hold up to serious cross-cultural analysis. That is, hunter-gatherer subsistence is not structurally linked to egalitarianism, generalized reciprocity, and settlement mobility, to name a few of the more prominent features. Moreover, hunter-gatherer populations once believed to be deeply rooted in evolutionary time are now understood as historical consequences of state expansion and political oppression. So, what does the concept of "hunter-gatherer" mean these days and what does anthropological knowledge of people living off the land tell us about long-term evolutionary trends, on the one hand, and modern power relations, on the other?

In this course, we address this question by considering alternative perspectives on the incredible diversity of lifestyles typically described as hunter-gatherer. We first take a look at evolutionary or behavioral ecological approaches, which focus generally on human-land relations that were shaped through long-term processes of natural selection. We contrast this perspective with those trained on political-economic and historical facets of hunter-gatherer lifeways and ideologies.  Much of this research centers on historical connections between hunter-gatherers and more complex societies, and it has, at times, been directly reactive to evolutionary-ecological knowledge claims, which tend to conceptualize hunter-gatherer societies as self-contained, isolated "systems."  Criticism of evolutionary ecology has brought attention to the roles of encapsulation and exploitation in shaping traits too often assumed to be the product of natural selection alone.  The historical-ecological perspectives we consider are among the current paradigms that circumvent the polemic engendered by the so-called revisionist debate.

One of the primary texts for this course is The Forging Spectrum, by Robert Kelly.  Going on 12 years of age, this excellent work remains the single best synthesis of hunter-gatherer diversity from a behavioral ecological perspective.  We also read in this course two book-length ethnographies to both illustrate current approaches to the anthropology of hunter-gatherers and to lay bare some of the enduring issues of debate.  One by Roy Richard Grinker is on the culture and history of ethnic relations between Lese farmers and their hunter-gatherer neighbors, the Efe.  Grinker shows us how relations between these Congo societies can be understood only in the deep historical context of extralocal influences.  We will also read Pierre Clastres'  chronicle of the Guayaki of Paraguay, with whom he lived for two years in the 1960s.  Apart from the rich ethnographic perspective Clastres offers, we have in this study a classic example of repeated societal transformations stemming from regional interactions, both Western and earlier.  Clastres' account gives us due pause to the efficacy of behavioral ecological studies of the Guayaki that ignore or downplay history. The final required text for this course is a collection of papers showcasing interdisciplinary perspectives on hunter-gatherers.  Edited by Catherine Panter-Brick, Robert Layton, and Peter Rowley-Conwy, this volume encompasses both evolutionary and historical perspectives, as well as those described as "biocultural" or "biosocial.".  Its chapters are assigned throughout the course, as indicated in schedule below with the shorthand "P-B."   The suite of other papers and chapters listed below are also required reading.

This course is designed for students of ethnography and archaeology alike. Students of ethnography will become familiar with a wide range of comparative material, as well as alternative conceptual frameworks for interpreting hunter-gatherer diversity. Most important, this seminar will help to develop intellectual skills for debasing normative and typological approaches to societal variation. For archaeologists the seminar offers the opportunity to delve into the empirical record of hunter-gatherer diversity for analogical purposes, while reminding us of the shortcomings of uniformitarian principles. We will actually consider very little archaeological material in this class, though I hope you will agree that everything we cover is extremely relevant to any archaeology of hunter-gatherer "prehistory."

Format and Expectations

This is the first time this course has been offered to both graduate students and advanced undergraduates.   Despite the difference in status, all students are expected to (1) attend all class meetings; (2) read all materials, as assigned below; (3) participate in  class discussions and be prepared to answer questions based on the assigned readings; and (4) research and write a term paper.  In general, graduate students are held to a higher statndard of performance than their undergraduate counterparts, but the only absolute difference is in the length of the term paper.  Undergraduate students are expected to write ca. 15-page papers;  graduate students are expected to write ca. 30-page papers.  Paper topics will focus on the ecology, history, and geopolitics of an ethnographic hunter-gatherer society of your choice.  I ask you to place emphasis on the historical circumstances that brought your particular research group into existence as an ethnographically (and/or archaeologically) recognized society, and those circumstances attending transformation of identity and intergroup relations.  This historical context ought to provide sufficient grounds for locating weaknesses in purely ecological perspectives.  Thus, you can reserve a portion of your paper for critical analysis of extant ecological literature on your research group.

Enrollment for this course is a bit beyond that conducive to seminar interaction, so we must make a few adjustments. Instead of exclusively open discussion, I will provide a lecture at each meeting on the assigned material, supplementing it with additional material and perhaps an occasional video. You will have plenty of opportunity to comment and question, and we may try a few break-out sessions for more in-depth analysis.  Also, we will have some special guests who have direct experience with modern hunter-gatherer peoples in Africa.  On that day (Feb 18) we will conduct a forum with our guests using questions written and submitted by students the week before.

I’ll provide materials to help in your selection of a hunter-gatherer case study, as well as guidelines for papers. Your final grade will be based on the originality, depth of research, and analytical quality of your paper, and by participation in class. Get started on your research as soon as possible.  I want you to be very familiar with the ethnographic, historical, and ecological data of your case study and will call upon you in class occasionally to add some ethnographic and historical detail to our general discussions.  At our last two meetings of the semester everyone will be given the oportunity to hold forth in class with a 15-minute overview of their research papers.

COURSE OUTLINE
 

Date	Topic	Readings
Jan. 7	Prospectus
Jan. 14	Conceptualizing H-Gs in Evolutionary and Historical Terms	P-B 2001:Ch. 1 (P-B et al.); Lee and Daly 1999; Barnard 1999; Kelly 1995:Ch. 1-2; Yengoyan 2004
Jan. 21	MLK Day - No Class
Hunter-Gatherers in Evolution
Jan. 28	Subsistence, Mobility, Technology	P-B 2001:Ch. 2 (Winterhalder); Clastres 1998 (first half); Kelly 1995:Ch. 3-4
Feb. 4	Group Size/Structure, Sharing, Exchange	Clastres 1998 (second half); Kelly 1995:Ch. 5-6
		Paper proposals due
Feb. 11	Demography, Reproduction, Health	P-B 2001:Ch. 7 (Pennington); P-B 2001:Ch. 8 (Jenike); P-B 2001:Ch. 9 (Froment); Kelly 1995:Ch. 6-7
		Forum Questions Due
Hunter-Gatherers in History
Feb. 18	The Revisionist Debate	Headland & Reid 1989; Lee 1992; Bird-David 1988; Suzman 2004
		Forum with Special Guests
Feb. 25	Hunter-Gatherers and the Others	Grinker 1994:Ch. 1-3; P-B 2001:Ch. 11 (Layton); Sassaman 2001
Mar. 3	H-G - Farmer Interaction	Grinker 1994:Ch. 4-6; Bailey et al. 1989; Spielman and Eder 1994
Mar. 10	Spring Break - No Class
Mar. 17	Whither Egalitarianism?	Cashdan 1980; Wiessner  2002; Woodburn 1988; Ingold 1999
Mar. 24	The Problem of "Complexity" I	P-B 2001:Ch. 3 (Rowley-Conwy); Hayden 1994; Arnold 1996; Kelly 1995:Ch.. 7-8
Mar. 31	The Problem of "Complexity" II	P-B 2001:Ch. 10 (Conkey); Sassaman 2004; Holly 2005
		Paper Drafts Due
Apr. 7	Persistence and Transformation in Modernity	Asch 1982; Trigger 1999; Povinelli 2002; Kelly 1995:Ch. 9;
Apr. 14	Synthesis, Debate, Presentations I
Apr. 21	Synthesis, Debate, Presentations II
		Final Papers due

Additional Readings

Arnold, Jeanne
    1996    The Archaeology of Complex Hunter-Gatherers.  Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 3:77-126.

Asch, Michael I.
    1982 Dene Self-Determination and the Study of Hunter-Gatherers in the Modern World. In Politics and History in Band Societies, edited by Eleanor Leacock and Richard Lee, pp. 347-372. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Bailey, R. G. Head, M. Jenike, B. Owen, R. Rechtman, and E. Zechenter
    1989 Hunting and Gathering in Tropical Rain Forest: Is It Possible? American Anthropologist 91:59-82.

Barnard, Alan
    1999    Images of Hunters and Gatherers in European Social Thought.  In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers, edited by R. B. Lee and R. Daly, pp. 375-383.  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Bird-David, Nurit H.
    1988    Hunter-Gatherers and Other People:  A Re-examination.  In Hunters and Gatherers, Vol. 1: History, Evolution, and Social Change, edited by T. Ingold, D. Riches, and J. Woodburn, pp. 17-30.  Berg, New York.

Cashdan, Elizabeth
    1980 Egalitarianism among Hunters and Gatherers. American Anthropologist 82:116-129.

Hayden, Brian
    1994 Competition, Labor, and Complex Hunter-Gatherers. In Key Issues in Hunter-Gatherer Research, edited by E. S. Burch, Jr., and L. J. Ellanna, pp. 223-239. Berg, Oxford.

Headland, T. N., and L. A. Reid
    1989 Hunter-Gatherers and Their Neighbors from Prehistory to the Present. Current Anthropology 30:43-66.

Holly, Donald H., Jr.
    2005   The Place of "Others" in Hunter-Gatherer Intensification. American Anthropologist 107:207-220.

Ingold, Tim
    1999   On the Social Relations of the Hunter-Gatherer Band.  In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers, edited by R. B. Lee and R. Daly, pp. 399-410.  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Lee, Richard B
    1992 Art, Science, or Politics? The Crisis in Hunter-Gatherer Studies. American Anthropologist 94:31-54.

Lee, Richard B., and Richard Daly
    1999    Introduction:  Foragers and Others.  In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers, edited by R. B. Lee and R. Daly, pp. 1-19.  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Povinelli, Elizabeth
    2002   The Cunning of Recognition:  Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism.  Duke University Press (portions assigned tba)

Sassaman, Kenneth E.
    2001    Hunter-Gatherers and Traditions of Resistance.  In The Archaeology of Traditions:  Agency and History Before and After Columbus, edited by T. R. Pauketat, pp. 218-236.  University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

    2005    Complex Hunter-Gatherers in Evolution and Hsitory.  Journal of Archaeological Research 12:227-280.

Spielman, K. A., and J. F. Eder
    1994    Hunters and Farmers: Then and Now. Annual Review of Anthropology 23:303-323.

Suzman, James
    2004   Hunting for Histories:  Rethinking Histroicity in the Western Kalahari.  In Hunter-Gatherers in History, Archaeology, and Anthropology, edited by A. Barnard, pp. 201-216. Berg, Oxford.

Trigger, David S.
    1999    Hunter-gatherer Peoples and Nation-States.  In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers, edited by R. B. Lee and R. Daly, pp. 473-479.  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Wiessner, Polly
    2002    The Vines of Complexity: Egalitarian Structures and the Institutionalization of Inequality among the Enga. Current Anthropology 43(2).

Woodburn, James
    1988    African Hunter-Gatherer Social Organization:  Is It Best Understood as a Product of Encapsulation?  In Hunters and Gatherers, Vol. 1: History, Evolution, and Social Change, edited by T. Ingold, D. Riches, and J. Woodburn, pp. 31-64.  Berg, New York.

Yengoyan, Aram A.
    2004   Anthropological History and the Study of Hunters and Gatherers:  Cultural and Non-Cultural.  In Hunter-Gatherers in History, Archaeology, and Anthropology, edited by A. Barnard, pp. 57-66. Berg, Oxford.