Modeling Hunter-Gatherer Information Networks:

Abstract

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Late Pleistocene pottery production and exchange: Provenance studies of hunter-gatherer wares from southern Kyushu, Japan by neutron activation analysis

“…Either local resources were contained in pottery and exchanged and/or pottery itself may have functioned as the commodity (modifying [ 41 ]). Some degrees of long-distance exchange are expected as risk buffering behaviors for foragers residing in areas with resource predictability and concentration [ 77 , 78 ]. If the ceramics are from granitic batholiths zones of Yakushima or the southern Osumi Peninsula, and northern Osumi, it is unlikely residents of Sankakuyama I produced the vessels during logistical activities and transported the vessels back to the base camps of Sankakuyama I as such behaviors are costly for hunter-gatherers expected to maximize return during forays [ 41 ].…”

“…With the expectation that foragers engage in exchange with other groups in distinct resource and environmental zones in order to buffer risks [ 77 , 78 , 90 , 95 ], network brokerage sites linking groups and people [ 96 , 97 ] are suggested to exist between producer and consumer end points. Additionally, because the information and resource exchanges are among the activities in inter-band and supra band gatherings [ 77 , 80 ], we suggest that the southern Osumi in Kyushu proper may have functioned as the mid-zone for exchange. The southern Osumi may have been where Group 2 pottery was produced, with other Incipient Jomon sites to the north where raw materials of Group 1 is abundant.…”

“…Increased sedentism is expected in the context of resource predictability and concentration among foragers [ 76 ], but some level of exchange is expected even in those conditions [ 41 , 77 , 78 ]. At Sankakuyama I on Tanegaghima Island with relatively warm and predictable environment in proximity to the coast (e.g., [ 79 ]) during the Incipient Jomon, this expectation of sedentism is reasonable.…”

“…Although exotic small flake-based tools found in much higher proportion at Sankakuyama I requires alternative explanations, the evidence of only some exotic pottery (up to 14%) obtained from the petrographic results align with this perspective. Hunter-gatherers engage in feasting, communal hunting, trading, and information exchange through inter-band, supra-band, and regional networks [ 77 , 80 ] in part to buffer risks of resource failures and loss of crucial information for sustenance (e.g., [ 18 , 81 – 85 ]). Because pottery production during logistical foraging in remote places and transporting vessels back to Sankakuyama I where they already have vessels is costly, we infer that the imported ware from other islands found at Sankakuyama I relates to social networks and exchange with other groups [ 41 ].…”

Habitat suitability and the genetic structure of human populations during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in Western Europe

“…Ethnographically known hunting and gathering groups maintain a fluid social structure and extended social networks that promote the gathering of information about resource availability and facilitate residential moves in the event of resource failure. Mobility has inherent costs that need to be balanced out against expected returns, however, and the structure of the environment, i.e., the pattern of distribution of both resources and resource risk, affects the degree of mobility in human systems [35,36]. Consequently, the HDRG team included several indices of climate variability in the model-building process in addition to a suite of conventional climate and topographic variables.…”