A quantitative analysis of intensification in the ethnographic record.

Abstract

A central goal of anthropology is to explain the fundamental reorganization of human social life that occurred over the last 10,000 years. At the onset of the Holocene human societies were universally mobile, egalitarian, foraging bands. Today all humans are members of urbanized, stratified, agricultural states. This reorganization depended entirely upon on the process of intensification-the production of more food energy per unit area of land per unit time. However, intensification remains poorly understood for two reasons: (i) the standard (Boserupian) model remains rooted eighteenth century social science and nineteenth century social philosophy; and, (ii) no comparative, quantitative, cross-cultural data set describing the process exists. This paper addresses both of these social scientific problems. I propose a "macroecological" model of the nature and dynamics of human food production systems derived from recent work in complex systems analysis and human ecology. I then assess the validity of the standard and macroecological models with statistical analyses of a comparative, quantitative, cross-cultural data set compiled from the ethnographic record. These data describe the energetic input and output associated with food production in sixty human societies ranging from foraging bands to industrial states. The analysis of the ethnographic record provides no empirical support for the standard model and suggests that we tentatively accept the macroecological model. I conclude by outlining the middle-range behavioral theories and organizational mechanisms that may explain the nature and dynamics of food production systems as described by the macroecological model and by discussing the demographic implications of the paper's results.