Full metadata
Title
Feedbacks, critical transitions and social change in forager-resource systems: an integrated modeling and ethnoarchaeological analysis
Description
My dissertation contributes to a body of knowledge useful for understanding the evolution of subsistence economies based on agriculture from those based on hunting and gathering, as well as the development of formal rules and norms of territorial ownership in hunter-gatherer societies. My research specifically combines simple formal and conceptual models with the empirical analysis of large ethnographic and environmental data sets to study feedback processes in coupled forager-resource systems. I use the formal and conceptual models of forager-resource systems as tools that aid in the development of two alternative arguments that may explain the adoption of food production and formal territorial ownership among hunter-gatherers. I call these arguments the Uncertainty Reduction Hypothesis and the Social Opportunity Hypothesis. Based on the logic of these arguments, I develop expectations for patterns of food production and formal territorial ownership documented in the ethnographic record of hunter-gatherer societies and evaluate these expectations with large ethnographic and environmental data sets. My analysis suggests that the Uncertainty Reduction Hypothesis is more consistent with the data than the Social Opportunity Hypothesis. Overall, my approach combines the intellectual frameworks of evolutionary ecology and resilience thinking. The result is a theory of subsistence change that integrates elements of three classic models of economic development with deep intellectual roots in human ecology: The Malthusian, Boserupian and Weberian models. A final take home message of my study is that evolutionary ecology and resilience thinking are complementary frameworks for archaeologists who study the transition from hunting and gathering to farming.
Date Created
2014
Contributors
- Freeman, Jacob (Author)
- Anderies, John M (Thesis advisor)
- Nelson, Margaret C. (Thesis advisor)
- Barton, C Michael (Committee member)
- Arizona State University (Publisher)
Topical Subject
Resource Type
Extent
xii, 192 p. : ill. (some col.)
Language
eng
Copyright Statement
In Copyright
Primary Member of
Peer-reviewed
No
Open Access
No
Handle
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.24811
Statement of Responsibility
by Jacob Freeman
Description Source
Retrieved on July 8, 2014
Level of coding
full
Note
thesis
Partial requirement for: Ph.D., Arizona State University, 2014
bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (p. 163-180)
Field of study: Anthropology
System Created
- 2014-06-09 02:07:18
System Modified
- 2021-08-30 01:35:57
- 3 years 2 months ago
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