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Large-Game Hunting, Gender-Differentiated Work Organization, and the Role of Evolutionary Ecology in California and Great Basin Prehistory: A Reply to Broughton and Bayham

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

William R. Hildebrandt  and
Kelly R. McGuire
William R. Hildebrandt
Affiliation:
2727 Del Rio Place, Suite A, Far Western Anthropological Research Group, Inc. Davis, California 95617
Kelly R. McGuire
Affiliation:
2727 Del Rio Place, Suite A, Far Western Anthropological Research Group, Inc. Davis, California 95617
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Abstract

We are pleased that Broughton and Bayham acknowledge that there was an increase in large-game hunting during the Middle Archaic (ca. 4000-1000 B.P.) in California and the Great Basin that reached proportions greater than any other interval during the Holocene. They argue, however, that this was simply the result of changing climatic conditions, and that the larger social context of hunting plays little or no role in this development. The following discussion identifies several weaknesses in their environmental determinism, and shows how a more comprehensive analysis of genders differentiated fitness and work organization provides greater explanatory power than the narrow, fauna-based approach they advocate.

Résumé

Résumé

Nos complace que Broughton y Bayham reconozcan que hubo un aumento en la cacería de presas grandes durante el periodo Arcaico Medio (ca.. 4000-1000 a.p.) en California y la Gran Cuenca que alcanzó proporciones mucho mayores que las que datan de cualquier otro intervalo del holoceno. Sin embargo, ellos sostienen que esto sencillamente fue el resultado de cambios en las condiciones climáticas y que el contexto social más amplio de la cacería tuvo un papel mínimo o careción de pertinencia en este desarrollo. En la siguiente discusión identificamos varias debilidades en el determinismo ambiental de estos autores, y demostramos cómo un análisis más amplio de la capacidad diferenciada según el género y la organización del trabajo aporta mayor fuerza explicativa que el enfoque limitado basado en la fauna al que se abocan los investigadores citados.

Type
Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 68 , Issue 4 , October 2003 , pp. 790 - 792
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2003

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References

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