Learning to Spear Hunt Among Ethiopian Chabu Adolescent Hunter-Gatherers

Dira, Samuel Jilo; Hewlett, Barry S.

doi:10.1007/978-4-431-55997-9_6

Cited by 42 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Children in infancy and early childhood also play with their parents’ tools, including potentially dangerous ones such as machetes (Hewlett et al 2011 ; Lewis 2002 ; Lye 1997 ). Authors described parents making toy versions of fishing lines, baskets, digging sticks, spears, and bows and arrows for children across cultures, including the Gidra (Nishiaki 2013 ), Batek (Lye 1997 ), Kaytetye (Thompson 2003 ), Chabu (Dira and Hewlett 2016 ), Aka (Hewlett et al 2011 ; Neuwelt-Truntzer 1981 ), Comanche (Wallace and Hoebel 1952 ), Hadza (Crittenden 2016 ), and the San (Imamura 2016 ). Among the Batek, by two years of age children are already learning ecological taxonomies (Lye 1997 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Subsistence Skills?

Lew‐Levy

Reckin

Lavi

et al. 2017

Hum Nat

167

151

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Hunting and gathering is, evolutionarily, the defining subsistence strategy of our species. Studying how children learn foraging skills can, therefore, provide us with key data to test theories about the evolution of human life history, cognition, and social behavior. Modern foragers, with their vast cultural and environmental diversity, have mostly been studied individually. However, cross-cultural studies allow us to extrapolate forager-wide trends in how, when, and from whom hunter-gatherer children learn their subsistence skills. We perform a meta-ethnography, which allows us to systematically extract, summarize, and compare both quantitative and qualitative literature. We found 58 publications focusing on learning subsistence skills. Learning begins early in infancy, when parents take children on foraging expeditions and give them toy versions of tools. In early and middle childhood, children transition into the multi-age playgroup, where they learn skills through play, observation, and participation. By the end of middle childhood, most children are proficient food collectors. However, it is not until adolescence that adults (not necessarily parents) begin directly teaching children complex skills such as hunting and complex tool manufacture. Adolescents seek to learn innovations from adults, but they themselves do not innovate. These findings support predictive models that find social learning should occur before individual learning. Furthermore, these results show that teaching does indeed exist in hunter-gatherer societies. And, finally, though children are competent foragers by late childhood, learning to extract more complex resources, such as hunting large game, takes a lifetime.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Subsistence Skills?

Lew‐Levy

Reckin

Lavi

et al. 2017

Hum Nat

167

151

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…First, oblique transmission may be primarily used to refine previously acquired knowledge rather than acquire new knowledge forms (Reyes-García et al 2016). For example, while an individual may learn to hunt from their father or weave baskets from their mother in early life, they may also seek out expert adults from whom to learn specialized aspects of these tasks, such as innovative basketry design (Dira and Hewlett 2016;Hewlett in press, 2013Hewlett in press, , 2016Hewlett and Hewlett 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, several studies conducted among Aka and Chabu foragers demonstrate that adolescents preferentially learn complex skills from individuals whom they consider to be especially competent teachers (Dira and Hewlett 2016;Hewlett in press, 2013Hewlett in press, , 2016). While we found a weak relationship between teaching and skill complexity, teacher quality may be an important, and unaccounted for, factor in the transmission of complex knowledge via teaching.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In middle childhood, much of children's time is spent in child-only groups playing and working, and children likely learn a majority of the basic subsistence tasks needed in adulthood horizontally during this time (Boyette and Hewlett 2017;Maynard and Tovote 2009;Quinlan et al 2016;Salali et al 2016Salali et al , 2019Zarger 2002). By adolescence and into adulthood, when most basic foraging competencies have been acquired, learners may seek to acquire more complex knowledge obliquely from experts outside the family or the friend group (Aunger 2000;Dira and Hewlett 2016;Garfield et al 2016;Hewlett in press, 2013Hewlett in press, , 2016Reyes-Garcia et al 2009). In sum, low-skill tasks performed by most or all of the population are acquired earlier in life from easily accessible models, such as parents and peers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The life history of learning subsistence skills among Hadza and BaYaka foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo

Lew‐Levy¹,

Ringen²,

Crittenden³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Aspects of human life history and cognition, such as our long childhoods and extensive use of teaching, theoretically evolved to facilitate the acquisition of complex tasks. The present paper empirically examined the relationship between subsistence task difficulty and age of acquisition, rates of teaching, and rates of oblique transmission among Hadza and BaYaka foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo. We further examined cross-cultural variation in how and from whom learning occurred. Learning patterns and community perceptions of task difficulty were assessed through interviews. We found no relationship between task difficulty, age of acquisition, and oblique transmission, and a weak but positive relationship between task difficulty and rates of teaching. While same-sex transmission was normative in both societies, tasks ranked as more difficult were more likely to be transmitted by men among the BaYaka, but not among the Hadza, potentially reflecting cross-cultural differences in the sexual division of subsistence and teaching labor. Further, the BaYaka were more likely to report learning via teaching, and less likely to report learning via observation, than the Hadza, possibly due to differences in socialization practices. These findings suggest that patterns of transmission are highly variable across cultures.

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“…Although they realize that these bands often represent points of weakness in the rock, the adze makers prize them for their aesthetic value" (p. 697). 32 Dira and Hewlett (2016). 33 Boyette and Hewlett (2017).…”

Section: Learning and Teaching In The Acheulean: Theory And Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Aesthetic sense and social cognition: a story from the Early Stone Age

Currie

Zhu

2019

Synthese

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Human aesthetic practices show a sensitivity to the ways that the appearance of an artefact manifests skills and other qualities of the maker. We investigate a possible origin for this kind of sensibility, locating it in the need for coordination of skill-transmission in the Acheulean stone tool culture. We argue that our narrative supports the idea that Acheulean agents were aesthetic agents. In line with this we offer what may seem an absurd comparison: between the Acheulean and the Quattrocento. In making it we display some hidden complexity in human aesthetic responses to an artefact. We conclude with a brief review of rival explanationsbiological and/or cultural-of how this skills-based sensibility became a regular feature of human aesthetic practices.

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Learning to Spear Hunt Among Ethiopian Chabu Adolescent Hunter-Gatherers

Cited by 42 publications

References 13 publications

How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Subsistence Skills?

How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Subsistence Skills?

The life history of learning subsistence skills among Hadza and BaYaka foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo

Aesthetic sense and social cognition: a story from the Early Stone Age

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