On the Possibility/Impossibility of Tropical Forest Hunting and Gathering

Modern humans in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, during Oxygen Isotope Stage 3: palaeoenvironmental evidence from the Great Cave of Niah

“…These observations must, however, be treated cautiously until corroborated by other lines of evidence, particularly as natural fires are held to be part of Bornean ecosystems today (Goldammer and Seibert, 1989). These finding also offer a local resolution of anthropological debates concerning the ability of Pleistocene foragers to find sufficient protein within wet tropical forested environments (Bailey et al, 1989;Townsend, 1990;Bailey and Headland, 1991;Dentan, 1991). In brief, the adjacent landscape was sometimes forested e giving rise to the palaeontological evidence for forest (Cranbrook, 2000) e at other times savannah-like vegetation was prevalent.…”

“…According to some commentators, sustained human activity based on foraging for animal proteins would have been difficult, if not impossible, in an environment dominated by deep wet tropical forest, as is present at Niah today (e.g. Headland, 1987;Hutterer, 1988;Bailey et al, 1989;Townsend, 1990;Bailey and Headland, 1991;Dentan, 1991). Limited archaeological evidence (Bellwood, 1997) suggests that foraging in wet tropical lowland forest might have occurred during the Late Pleistocene elsewhere in Island Southeast Asia: the biogeographical evidence discussed above might suggest similar environments around Niah.…”

Prehistoric Foragers and Farmers in South-east Asia: Renewed Investigations at Niah Cave, Sarawak

“…The second debate concerns the means by which modern humans subsisted in south-east Asia in the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. It is generally assumed that they were rainforest foragers, but anthropologists disagree about whether or not modern hunter-gatherers can in fact survive in tropical rainforest by foraging alone (Bailey & Headland 1991;Bailey et al 1989;Colinvaux & Bush 1991;Endicott & Bellwood 1991;Townsend 1990). Though tropical rainforests are commonly thought of as a Garden of Eden for foragers, they are in fact difficult to live in because food sources come in many small 'packets' rather than as clusters, and these packets are widely distributed not just spatially but also vertically, between the forest floor and the top of the tree canopy, so many of them are effectively inaccessible.…”

The ‘cultured rainforests’ of Borneo

“…It was also debated amongst archaeologists and anthropologists whether past foraging (hunting and gathering) peoples would have been able to live in rainforest, because trading forest products with neighbouring agriculturalists was a critical part of the survival strategies of most present-day tropical foragers (e.g. Headland, 1987;Hutterer, 1988;Bailey et al, 1989;Townsend 1990;Bailey and Headland 1991;Dentan, 1991).…”

“…It was also debated amongst archaeologists and anthropologists whether past foraging (hunting and gathering) peoples would have been able to live in rainforest, because trading forest products with neighbouring agriculturalists was a critical part of the survival strategies of most present-day tropical foragers (e.g. Headland, 1987;Hutterer, 1988;Bailey et al, 1989;Townsend 1990;Bailey and Headland 1991;Dentan, 1991).By the 1990s it was apparent that tropical forests had waned in area and changed markedly in composition during the Pleistocene glaciations (e.g. Flenley, 1996;van der Kaars and Dam, 1997;Morley, 2000) and in Southeast Asia and New Guinea palynologists were reporting biomass burning and forest disturbance across the region (e.g.…”