Evolutionary Ecology, Resource Depression, and Niche Construction Theory: Applications to Central California Hunter-Gatherers and Mimbres-Mogollon Agriculturalists

Broughton, Jack M.; Cannon, Michael; Bartelink, Eric J.

doi:10.1007/s10816-010-9095-7

Cited by 81 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 132 publications

(175 reference statements)

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“…Complementarity between NCT and EE has already been illustrated in case studies of New World hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists (108). Broughton et al (ref.…”

Section: Integration Of Evolutionary Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…EE offers a systematic way to evaluate the motivations for niche-construction activities such as landscape management and its intensification. In fact, applications of behavioral ecological models in archaeology often highlight the active role of humans in shaping their habitats (62,80,97,108). Assertions to the contrary (50) neglect a substantial amount of literature on the subject.…”

Section: Ecological Models Accommodate Humanmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Particularism and the retreat from theory in the archaeology of agricultural origins

Gremillion

Barton

Piperno

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

130

105

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The introduction of new analytic methods and expansion of research into previously untapped regions have greatly increased the scale and resolution of data relevant to the origins of agriculture (OA). As a result, the recognition of varied historical pathways to agriculture and the continuum of management strategies have complicated the search for general explanations for the transition to food production. In this environment, higher-level theoretical frameworks are sometimes rejected on the grounds that they force conclusions that are incompatible with real-world variability. Some of those who take this position argue instead that OA should be explained in terms of local and historically contingent factors. This retreat from theory in favor of particularism is based on the faulty beliefs that complex phenomena such as agricultural origins demand equally complex explanations and that explanation is possible in the absence of theoretically based assumptions. The same scholars who are suspicious of generalization are reluctant to embrace evolutionary approaches to human behavior on the grounds that they are ahistorical, overly simplistic, and dismissive of agency and intent. We argue that these criticisms are misplaced and explain why a coherent theory of human behavior that acknowledges its evolutionary history is essential to advancing understanding of OA. Continued progress depends on the integration of human behavior and culture into the emerging synthesis of evolutionary developmental biology that informs contemporary research into plant and animal domestication. evolutionary theory | behavioral ecologyOver the last decade there has been a major expansion of knowledge regarding the timing and socioecological context of plant domestication and emerging agricultural systems. This wealth of data is due in large part to methodological innovations (e.g., in genetics and paleogenomics, in the analysis of plant micro-and macroremains and biological residues, and in the physical and biogeochemical analyses of anthropogenic sediments), reexcavations of some important archaeological sites, and the expansion of archaeological research into regions whose record of agricultural origins has been until recently poorly known [such as New Guinea (1, 2), lowland areas of Mesoamerica and northern South America (3-7), and northern and southern China (8-13)]. These research activities have enriched both the scale and resolution of the data relevant to agricultural origins worldwide. One result of this welcome enhancement of the empirical record is wider acknowledgment of the variability in the historical pathways taken by emerging food production systems across space and time. The dichotomy between foraging and food production has been discarded in favor of a continuum of landscape, plant, and animal management strategies that sometimes resist classification. However, for some scholars (2, 14), the richly detailed records of change seem to have dampened the appeal of general explanations for the transition to agriculture. This tr...

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“…Complementarity between NCT and EE has already been illustrated in case studies of New World hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists (108). Broughton et al (ref.…”

Section: Integration Of Evolutionary Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Ecological Models Accommodate Humanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Particularism and the retreat from theory in the archaeology of agricultural origins

Gremillion

Barton

Piperno

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

130

105

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Is this regional focus changing, and if so, how? Finally, the relationship between foraging theory and niche construction in the literature is not merely one of conflict; indeed, as several of the articles cited earlier in this discussion show, many authors find these to be compatible approaches (e.g., Broughton et al 2010;Piperno et al 2017;Stiner and Kuhn 2016). Historical ecology, resilience, and sustainability, similarly, are non-optimality-based approaches used by researchers who also use foraging theory (see discussions in Giovas 2016;Redman 2005;Reitz 2004;Reitz et al 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Beyond Depression? A Review of the Optimal Foraging Theory Literature in Zooarchaeology and Archaeobotany

Jones

Hurley

2017

EBL

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The use of optimal foraging theory in archaeology has been criticized for focusing heavily on “negative” human-environmental interactions, particularly anthropogenic resource depression, in which prey populations are reduced by foragers’ own foraging activities. In addition, some researchers have suggested the focus on resource depression is more common in the zooarchaeological literature than in the archaeobotanical literature, indicating fundamental differences in the ways zooarchaeologists and archaeobotanists approach the archaeological record. In this paper, we assess these critiques through a review of the literature between 1997 and 2017. We find that studies identifying resource depression occur at similar rates in the archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological literature. In addition, while earlier archaeological applications of optimal foraging theory did focus heavily on the identification of resource depression, the literature published between 2013 and 2017 shows a wider variety of approaches.

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“…Some archaeologists also point out that CNC speaks little to why and when humans may choose to modify environments, questions that potentially complementary fields of study in human behavioral ecology, such as optimal foraging theory, may address better (e.g., refs. 8,11,82,84,85).…”

Section: Niche Construction Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing elements of an extended evolutionary synthesis for plant domestication and agricultural origin research

Piperno

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The development of agricultural societies, one of the most transformative events in human and ecological history, was made possible by plant and animal domestication. Plant domestication began 12,000–10,000 y ago in a number of major world areas, including the New World tropics, Southwest Asia, and China, during a period of profound global environmental perturbations as the Pleistocene epoch ended and transitioned into the Holocene. Domestication is at its heart an evolutionary process, and for many prehistorians evolutionary theory has been foundational in investigating agricultural origins. Similarly, geneticists working largely with modern crops and their living wild progenitors have documented some of the mechanisms that underwrote phenotypic transformations from wild to domesticated species. Ever-improving analytic methods for retrieval of empirical data from archaeological sites, together with advances in genetic, genomic, epigenetic, and experimental research on living crop plants and wild progenitors, suggest that three fields of study currently little applied to plant domestication processes may be necessary to understand these transformations across a range of species important in early prehistoric agriculture. These fields are phenotypic (developmental) plasticity, niche construction theory, and epigenetics with transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. All are central in a controversy about whether an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis is needed to reconceptualize how evolutionary change occurs. An exploration of their present and potential utility in domestication study shows that all three fields have considerable promise in elucidating important issues in plant domestication and in agricultural origin and dispersal research and should be increasingly applied to these issues.

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Evolutionary Ecology, Resource Depression, and Niche Construction Theory: Applications to Central California Hunter-Gatherers and Mimbres-Mogollon Agriculturalists

Cited by 81 publications

References 132 publications

Particularism and the retreat from theory in the archaeology of agricultural origins

Particularism and the retreat from theory in the archaeology of agricultural origins

Beyond Depression? A Review of the Optimal Foraging Theory Literature in Zooarchaeology and Archaeobotany

Assessing elements of an extended evolutionary synthesis for plant domestication and agricultural origin research

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